Part 72: Hannah

In a Brooklyn apartment, two people were arguing about religion. Well, at least one. The exact number depends on how you define words like “arguing” and “religion,” and - to the real extremists (Elizabeth Brixton, for instance, or Bill Clinton in a particularly slippery mood) - “apartment” and “Brooklyn” and “in,” as well.

In one corner, you had Jeremy Coville, a semi-recent convert to the proselytizing, door-to-door sort of Christianity, a member of one of those Protestant sects (Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian) whose members usually just call themselves “Christians,” the way some bands refuse to label themselves as anything more specific than “rock music.” He had entered Christianity by way of politics, a Christian because he was a Republican (a big fan of the Parable of the Talents) rather than the other way around. You spend enough time around people who ask what church you go to rather than if you go to church and eventually you’ll just make up an answer because it’s easier. Jeremy was twenty years old, well-dressed, and very nervous at the moment that being alone with a teenage girl was in itself illegal. It certainly felt illegal.

In the other, you had Hannah “Fucking” Pratt, the Hellraiser, the Rebel, the Runaway, the new New Yorker, who was mostly thankful that something was finally happening, that someone had knocked on the door and saved her from the boredom that wasn’t supposed to exist in New York. She was also getting tired of waiting for Jeremy to ask her if she’d even read the Bible so she could reply “As a matter of fact, I have” and shut him down. Just not down enough that he’d leave. She wanted to win and keep arguing, like in that second-most-famous line about cake, after the Marie Antoinette one.

“I’ve actually read the Bible,” she informed him, her impatience getting the better of her. “So.”

“So have I,” Jeremy replied. “But I’ve also accepted it’s truth. That is the difference between us. Your heart is still hardened.” Poor choice of words. He had to be careful to avoid anything with a sexual connotation, just in case.

“How do you know it’s true, though?”

“It’s the Word of God. It’s true by definition.”

“That’s so fucking dumb,” Hannah said. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, on a blanket she had spread out that morning, like she was at a picnic. Jeremy had refused to sit across from her, so he was in Paul’s favorite faux-rustic wooden chair, next to the bookshelf, full of books about theater and politics and race which Hannah hadn’t gotten around to yet. “That’s like, if I tell someone they can trust me and they don’t already trust me, they’re not gonna trust that they can trust me.”

“But human beings are fallible,” Jeremy explained. “That means we can--”

“I know what fallible means,” said Hannah. It had been a vocab word.

“We can make mistakes. But God, on the other hand, is infallible. Which means--”

“That he can’t. Right. I know how opposites work. But, like. Okay.” She tried to remember all the examples she had stored up for an opportunity just like this. “What about the part in the Bible where God tells Noah, hey, you’re the only good guy left on this planet so I’m gonna save you. And then it turns out Noah’s actually this total drunk who passes out naked in front of his kids? And then blames them for seeing him like that. Doesn’t that mean God made a mistake?”

She had passed James; she had made it to Exodus.

“You’re taking that story out of context . . .”

“Alright, so put it in context for me.”

“What?”

“You said I’m taking it out of context. So what’s the context where Noah’s not a complete drunk asshole?”

“Uh . . .” Jeremy wasn’t prepared for that. Out-of-context was a conversation-ending phrase, in his experience. He decided to try another: “It’s not meant to be taken literally. It’s an allegory.”

“Alright. Fine. An allegory for what?”

“You ask a lot of questions. You’re a very cur---inquisitive person.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s not a good thing. There’s no need to have questions when God has provided us with answers.”

“Shitty answers,” Hannah countered. “Sorry, but I’m not going to spend my life on my knees. Serving the Lord. Letting him enter me.”

Well, it was definitely time to get out of here, Jeremy thought. She was deliberately perverting the word of God, which offended him more as a social conservative and moralist of the sex-is-yucky variety than as a Christian per se: on a visceral, not an ideological level. “Well, I’d better be on my way,” he said, getting up. “Lots of other souls to save, you know? Can’t spend the whole day on one.”

“So you’re afraid to stay here and debate me? Too much of a coward? Or you just know that I’m right and you’re wrong?” Hannah felt desperate.

“Only God is infallible,” Jeremy said. Kind of a non-sequitur but good enough. He reached for the doorknob but as it did, the door swung open in his direction and someone else walked in, acting like he owned the place, which was because, in one sense, he did. Technically, Charlie was a renter, but he still had more claim to ownership than whoever this guy, this stranger, this - a part of him that was truly rubber, not glue and specialized in deflecting insults wanted so badly to call him a faggot - this nerd was. Or Hannah did, for that matter.

“Hannah, who the hell is this?” he said, looking Jeremy up and down as if scanning him for weapons. “You know what, never mind, I don’t care. That’s it. You’re going home. And you, get out now!” Jeremy took advantage of the opportunity to dart out into the hallway, even more urgent now that there was a homosexual in the mix. They made him deeply uncomfortable.

“I don’t have a home,” Hannah said, from her position on the blanket.

“Oh, quit being so dramatic, honey. And that’s coming from me.” Charlie began grabbing her things, spread out all over the apartment but clearly marked in his mind as hers, and stuffing them into her backpack. “Your mother isn’t perfect, none of us are, but she loves you and she wants you back there, even if she’s too proud to admit it.”

“She’s a devil woman.” Hannah wasn’t budging. If she didn’t move, he couldn’t take the blanket and as long as the blanket was down she still lived here.

“Oh, come on, Hannah, how long did you think this little vacation was going to last?”

“You said I could stay as long as I needed to.”

“And you have.”

“You don’t know what she’s like.”

“Actually, I do,” Charlie replied, tugging on the blanket. Hannah stayed put. “That line might work on your little friends back home, but I’ve known her longer than you have. She drinks a little too much wine sometimes, calls you selfish and ungrateful a couple times, then passes out on the couch and doesn’t remember it in the morning. Same routine every weekend. Thought you’d be used to it by now, really. Or are you ready to admit that’s not the only reason you’re here?”

“So why am I here?” She sprawled herself out on the blanket. “I thought I was here because I had a cousin who cared about me, but apparently not.”

“Get up. Come on. Let’s go,” Charlie said, talking to her like she was a dog, snapping his fingers. “We’ll discuss this in the car.” He grabbed her arm and started to drag her towards the door, the car, the suburbs. "Time to stop playing Mrs. Basil Frankfurter or whatever the fuck. Let's. Go."

Hannah screamed. “Are you trying to kidnap me?!”

“Technically, I already kidnapped you. What I’m trying to do now is the exact opposite.” He let go, threw his hands up like a basketball player after a foul. She made herself go flying backwards. “But fine. You want to be stubborn and stay here? Be. My. Guest. But I’m going back out, and I won’t be back for, I don’t know, a couple days? A week? I’ve got plenty of places to stay. Plenty of friends in the city, honey. Oh, and I’ll be taking my computer with me, and you know this place has only got one key.”

“So I’m a prisoner? You can’t do that to me!”

“Stay or leave. It’s up to you.” Charlie shrugged, crossed his arms, stared down at her.

Again, she wanted both.

“You’re. The. Worst.” Each word punctuated with a movement in the process of getting up: a hand hitting the ground; a knee; a foot.

“You think you invented being a teenage drama queen? I was doing the temper tantrums and cries for attention and grand gestures before you were even born.” A slight exaggeration, but that just underlined the point. “Now it’s time to stop playing hide-and-seek with your problems and get you back to your real life.”

“This was supposed to be my real life,” Hannah muttered to herself. She grabbed her backpack and balled up the blanket, each movement deliberate and defiant. “My new real life. But fine!” she burst out, addressing Charlie again - or addressing the whole apartment. “It’s so boring here anyway. I didn’t know anyone could manage to make New York boring, but you’ve done it. Congratulations. You’ve done the impossible. Congratu-fucking-lations.”

She lapsed back into her disgruntled muttering, adding more and more fucks until they became meaningless, a verbal tic. Charlie was patient. That was one thing you learned from growing up gay in the suburbs: patience. Wait the four years for the cute guy in math class to realize he was looking at Brad Pitt more than Jennifer Aniston on those magazine covers. Wait until you were old enough to move to New York for real and start your new life. Don't blow it on some adolescent whim.

Because it wasn’t a game for you: if you made the wrong move, it was all over.

But Hannah always got what she wanted and then some, so this was new for her. And she couldn’t be disillusioned with New York - that was a whole process: it started with Times Square, spread to Manhattan, and slowly seeped into the outer boroughs. So she had to blame him; it had to be his fault that she felt the way she did, or that she didn’t feel enough. She couldn’t let go of New York just yet.

But fine. As long as she got in the fucking car, she could think whatever she wanted.