The Trinity Game

YOU’RE WELCOME.

He topped up the gas, then bought his uncle a pair of blue jeans and a simple gray shirt at Kmart. Trinity drew the line at abandoning the white leather belt and cowboy boots, and Daniel had to settle for partial victory.

“Just trying to keep you alive,” he said as they pulled onto Highway 77, a paved two-lane heading south.

Tim Trinity grinned. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it.” He rolled down his window and lit a cigarette.

Daniel eyed the cigarette, said, “That’s the fifth one this hour. How bad you itchin’ to die, exactly?”

Trinity watched the smoke rise from between his fingers. “I do so love the devil sticks.” He took another drag, blew it out the window. “Yes I do. ’Course I should give ’em up…but you and I both know I ain’t gonna live long enough for these things to kill me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I just don’t think God’s plan includes me living to see you and Julia make perfect little Judeo-Christian babies, that’s all.”

They rode in silence for half a minute. Daniel said, “How did you know about Julia?”

“How could I have missed her?” Trinity smiled. “Admired your ambition, going after an older woman like her. You did real good, boy…she was a knockout.” Daniel said nothing. “Oh, come on! Don’t say you don’t remember, and don’t say you didn’t see me. I saw you see me. The Maple Leaf bar? Mid City Lanes? Golden Gloves? High school graduation? I stood to the side, holding the door wide open, every chance I got. You always knew you were wanted.”

Daniel raised a hand. “Fair enough. I saw you. And maybe I should’ve thanked you for the offer and told you I wasn’t interested in being an apprentice con artist.”

“Never said you should take after me.” Trinity flicked the cigarette out the window. “Made sure you got good grades, told you I had a college fund set aside. You coulda studied whatever you liked, done whatever you pleased. You knew that.”

“Yeah, well, you also told me we were on a mission from God. Mixed messages. I was a kid, remember?” He pointed at the radio. “Find us a news station, will ya? Let’s see what’s doing in the big world out there.”

Trinity turned the knob and scanned up the AM dial…some hillbilly music…a screaming preacher with a mind full of the “End Times”…a countrified pop station…and then he found a news station and brought it in strong.

…amazing development last night, when the Georgia Lottery numbers came up exactly as Reverend Tim Trinity predicted. But at a press conference this morning the Georgia Lottery Corporation announced that, despite the record jackpot, there were over 859,000 tickets sold with those winning numbers, so each winning ticket will pay only four dollars. For the first time in its seventeen years of operation, the lottery is being suspended pending an internal investigation. The GLC insisted that the investigation will be swift and said the lottery will resume as soon as the integrity of the game can be assured.

“Hot damn!” Trinity clapped his hands together. “That sure is something, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, terrific. We can now add the government to the list of people who want you dead.” Daniel turned the radio off. “Let’s see, we’ve got the gambling industry—the mob, the casinos, and now the government—”

“Don’t forget Wall Street,” said Trinity. “For all we know, I might start predicting closing numbers of the Dow Jones.”

“And Wall Street,” Daniel agreed. “Then we’ve got probably a dozen religions, including various sects that compete for the title Christian—”

“Including your friends at the Vatican,” said Trinity.

“You’re too sinister about the Vatican. They just want you contained.”

“Yeah, in a pine box.”

Daniel waved it off. “Suffice it to say, you’ve got a lot of powerful groups in your fan club. What do you know about Samson?”

“Had a soft spot for Delilah,” said Trinity. He followed with a just-trying-to-lighten-the-mood gesture. “I don’t know anything. When the world turned upside down, I told Jennifer to ask around and get me the best bodyguards in the business. She was a bright kid, I could give her jobs like that.”

Daniel thought back to Trinity’s dressing room. “Not was. She is a bright kid. She left your dressing room a couple minutes before the bomb went off.”

“Only because I sent her out,” said Trinity. “Look, I see where you’re going with this, but I’m telling you, you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree. Jennifer Bartlett’s one of the good guys. I’d bet my life on it.”

“You did,” said Daniel.

“Doesn’t prove anything.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’m just exploring different angles.”

They rode in silence for a while. It was an easy silence, and Daniel felt a profound sense of wholeness he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He’d always told himself that cutting toxic people from your life was essential to becoming an independent adult. Part of the process of self-actualization, as the psychologists called it. And that’s what he’d done when he walked away from Trinity. But Tim Trinity was the only family Daniel had ever known. He was father, mother, uncle…protector, provider, teacher.

He was everything. Even if he was a con man.

Leaving may have been the healthy choice, but when Daniel walked away he left a lot of himself behind. He could admit that now. Being with his uncle again did pick the scabs off the old wounds, but it also forced him to remember the love he had for the deeply flawed man who loved him.

Although Daniel hadn’t said a word, his uncle seemed to pick up on it.

“Look at us,” said Trinity, “no silk suit, no dog collar, cruisin’ down the 77 in a rusty old beater…” His hand swept across the sun-drenched rural Alabama landscape. “Just like the old days, eh?”

Daniel smiled back at him. “Yeah, kinda.”

“But this time, we really are on a mission from God. That story I sold you when you were a child…” Trinity lit a new cigarette, “…it was prettier than the truth, and I wanted your world to be prettier than the one I lived in. Only so many times I can apologize for that. But think about where we are now! That pretty story—that fantasy— has become manifested in reality.”

“In the fantasy, people weren’t trying to kill you.”

Trinity chuckled. “Well, I guess that’s the downside of reality.”

Daniel couldn’t help but laugh. “Hell of a downside. Look, Tim, don’t go getting all messianic on me. At best, you’re a modern day Elijah or something. But you’re not the sacrifice. I’m going to keep you alive. And I’ll need your cooperation with that.”

“You got it,” said Trinity. “I don’t want to die if I don’t have to. But I’m seeing this thing through, all the way. Whatever God wants. Whatever the cost.”

“Can’t argue that.” Daniel squinted against the sun, and a wave of fatigue rolled over him. The last day had used up a lot of adrenaline, and he’d only gotten a few hours’ fitful sleep at the cabin. He pulled the truck to a stop on the shoulder and threw it into park. “Listen, you mind taking the wheel for a spell? I’m feeling a little ragged, just need to rest my eyes an hour or two.”

Daniel drifted with the current, just below the surface. He felt his consciousness moving through space-time, aware that he was being transported on the smell of dry, dusty grass.

It took him back to the Winnebago, back to the tent revival circuit in summertime.

It was always such a rush, pulling into the dirt parking lot next to the big white tent, looking to see which other preachers’ RVs were already there, which other preachers’ kids were hacking around the place. Looking especially for Reverend Auld’s baby blue Winnebago, looking for Trixie, Auld’s skinny blonde daughter with the freckles splashed across her cheeks and the unsettling green eyes. Hoping she was there, hoping she wasn’t, fearing he’d be tongue-tied yet again.