Devout Christians may think amateur sleuth Reverend Evan Wycliff is an agnostic. He has an obsessively curious, questioning mind. Is this therefore not Christian literature? Was the Book of Revelation a divinely inspired vision or a crazed hallucination?
Here’s the text of Chapter 1 …
“Reverend Wycliff, much of what you believe in your Christian faith is true, but not for the reasons you believe.”
The grizzled old man at my door was muttering in heavily accented English, but his message was unmistakable. It didn’t help my perception that I was severely hung over, having spent most of the night alternately guzzling cheap bourbon and praying.
It was a spring morning, only slightly chilly, promising a day that might be perfectly fine. I was clad in my habitual sweatsuit, which might well have reeked by now, but I’d grown so accustomed to my own stink I wouldn’t know. I worried he did, even though his outward appearance was no more respectable than mine. He was dressed in a black business suit, but it wasn’t his size and looked rumpled and dirty, as if he’d been sleeping in doorways.
I’d finally managed to drop off to sleep just moments before there came the polite knock on my door, and I was having trouble keeping my eyes open.
“You’ve made coffee?” he asked with an approving sniff. It wasn’t so much a question as an insistent hint. When I had prepared with undue optimism last night to crawl into bed, I’d set the automatic drip machine for precisely this hour.
It seems I have no choice but to invite him in.
I still hadn’t greeted him or said a word yet. I simply opened the door to my humble cube-sized trailer home and waved an arm toward its shabby interior.
On the narrow counter where I undertake food preparations often no more complex than opening a can, I could only find one mug and that one encrusted with my own leavings. As he jostled behind me and sat in the only chair, I rummaged in the wall-mounted crate that houses dinnerware, condiments, and pharmaceuticals. I was delighted to find a second cup, this one emblazoned with the logo of the Twin Dragons Casino. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d needed to use it, but it looked reasonably clean.
I filled both cups from the steaming carafe, turned to offer him his, and before I could finally manage to speak to ask his preferences, he blurted what sounded like, “Kine krim, kine sook. Trying to quit zucker.”
German, I realized. Or perhaps his accent was of some other Eastern European extraction, and he was telling me he’d be more comfortable if I shared his other common language.
I sat down on my cot and blew out a puff of exhaustion, doubly fatigued after my long, dark night of the soul and the presumably unpleasant surprise of this intrusion on my unenviable privacy.
We both sipped, reverently it seemed.
He smacked his lips before he sighed and said, “I took long time finding you. Fortunately, your neighbors are shameless gossips.”
I took another restorative sip, cleared my throat, and asked gruffly, “To what do I owe the pleasure, Mister—?”
“Doctor Gropius. Hans Gropius. Forgive the similarity in name to the famous historical person, but no relation. The surname not my choice, of course. But people assume I must be from family of architects.” He sipped again, this time long and noisily, then added with a chuckle, “Although I stand in awe of the grand design.”
Somehow I caught the hint. My brain was waking up. There had to be a reason this fellow had taken pains to seek me out. So I asked, “Design? Physical or spiritual?”
He chuckled again, “Insight, you have! I knew I was in the right place. I simply toss out phrase that suggests scheme of Creation, and you jump on it. Clever fellow. We are going to be friends, I am sure of it.”
I cautioned him by displaying the upraised palms of my hands. It occurred to me he might think I was intending to show him stigmata or perhaps pre-Parkinson’s tremor, neither of which I think I have and might seem crazy, but based on his behavior so far, I had no reason to expect he was sane either. “When you talk about what I believe, I don’t know how you’d know. I will say I’m not an agnostic, although certainly I’ve been accused of such. I insist I am a man of faith, but faith in what mostly defies definition, depends on the day and my mood.”
He smiled, explaining. “I was faithful listener to your broadcasts. I was saddened when you went off the air. Then news of your resignation from your ministry was also upsetting.”
“I didn’t resign. I was kicked out, but the result is the same. I suppose my tumble downhill began when my wife left me. Turns out being a minister’s wife is an even heavier cross to bear than being a pastor. And as for my show, I tried to speak truth to power one too many times.”
“Do you believe in afterlife?” he asked quietly.
At that moment, I wished the coffee were bourbon and I could stiffen myself with a shot. I began to worry he might be a journalist or some emissary from church leadership sent to chastise me. But I decided I might as well answer as honestly as I could. “I don’t believe in resurrection of the body—as a living, breathing, human body. But, reincarnation? Transference of consciousness from one being—or state of being—to another? I won’t say it’s impossible. I worry it’s not, but because I have an obsessively curious intellect, I worry a lot.”
“My dear Evan,” he began, then stopped himself to ask, “May I address you so? I feel I know you so well, you see.”
His manner was amusing, endearing. “Go ahead,” I allowed. “Please tell me more about myself than I know, and I’ll gift you another cup of coffee.”
He loved this. Grinning broadly he teased, “You are, of course, aware of virtual reality?”
“Sure,” I said. “But can’t say I’ve indulged. Not games for kids anymore, I understand. Frankly, it’s scary.”
“And you know work of physicist Nick Bostrum?”
“I do,” I admitted. “Not in depth but I believe he’s famous for speculating we don’t live in what’s termed base reality.”
“Just so,” the visitor said approvingly. “We say now we live in post-information age. Soon we live in post-reality. Dreaming, waking—who can know the difference?”
“What are you trying to tell me, Hans?”
“Evan, you are a man of faith. You believe what you cannot see. We scientists, we say seeing is believing. I’m here to tell you, seeing means nothing anymore.”
Release date of the fourth book, Preacher Stalls the Second Coming, will be announced. The first three are available now in paperback, Kindle, and EPUB. The first novel, Preacher Finds a Corpse, is also available as an audiobook from Audible and other distributors worldwide.
Feed your curiosity with a paid subscription to this Thinking About Thinking blog. You’ll gain access to all the content that’s here, and you’ll be helping us build our worldwide community through storytelling and self-expression.
And if you’re already subscribed…
Get full access to Thinking About Thinking at geraldeverettjones.substack.com/subscribe
