Tod Goldberg - The Reformed

When youre a spy, the amount of time you spend in a church, a temple or a mosque depends on simple local custom: If the people trying to kill you have a healthy fear of their god, going to a church, a temple or a mosque is a great way to avoid a bullet in the head. Even the most cold-blooded killer will think twice about spraying gunfire inside of a holy place, because though the idea of sanctuary may sound like something from a genteel, antiquated past, so it would reason that even the most nonreligious person might give even more consideration to shooting a gun in a holy place when given time to contemplate his particular gods wrath-even if he doesnt particularly believe in that god.

All of which is why I always make sure to have my gun on me whenever Im near a church. Its just better to be the one guy who isnt thinking twice about things, which is precisely why I didnt want to stop at the Church of the Gleaming Spires youth-group car wash, despite my mothers sudden desire to be a good citizen.

Michael, my mother, Madeline, said, when you were a boy, you played basketball there every day after school.

No, I didnt, I said.

Well, you could have, she said. And done arts and crafts, too. We were stopped at a red light down the street from the church, and there were three teenage girls with a sign for the car wash, waving at us on the corner. I kept my eyes forward. You never want to engage the enemy if you dont have to.

Ma, I said, I prefer to wash my own car. Its an issue of pride.

My mother ran a finger over the Chargers dashboard, leaving a trail in the dust. Apparently not, she said.

I dont like people touching my stuff, I said.

Your father kept this car so clean, she said.

No, he didnt, I said. Of course, he also didnt use the car as the frequent base of operations for clandestine missions with his friends, so maybe I had a decent excuse for the Charger being periodically dusty. In the past few years, since Id received my burn notice and been sent back to Miami, minus my life, Dads Charger had been set on fire, shot at, slept in and, occasionally, crashed into stationary objects.

Im just saying, Michael, my mother said, that it wouldnt kill you to help those nice kids out by giving them a few dollars of your blood money.

Ma, I said, I have an AK-47 in the trunk.

So dont have them clean out your trunk, she said. And, anyway, its a good cause. Maybe it will keep these kids from becoming gun-toting mercenaries like you and Sam.

That my mother was not fazed by the fact that I had an assault rifle in my trunk should have been disconcerting, but since Id been back in Miami, many of the secrets of my life had been demystified. To my mother, Sam was no longer just a friend of mine from the military with questionable taste in women; these days he was also, well, essentially, a gun-toting mercenary. And my ex-girlfriend Fiona wasnt just a nice Irish girl without a discernible job (its hard to tell your mother that the girl youre dating robs banks for the IRA), but, well, essentially, a gun-toting mercenary these days, too. That both Sam and Fiona were really just out to protect me was clear to my mother, too, but something told me she didnt think I needed protecting most of the time.

And shes right. Most of the time.

Fine, I said. Id already spent the previous three hours with my mother, running a gauntlet of errands-the podiatrist, Target, the hair salon, back to Target, back again to Target-and now, finally we were heading back home, so I wasnt in a mood to argue much. Sometimes its just easier to say Fine and chalk the day up as a total loss.

I reached across my mother, flipped open the glove box and pulled out the SIG SAUER I kept there and the bag of blasting caps I meant to give back to Fiona. There were also about fifteen cell phones in various stages of disrepair littered on the floor in the back, but I figured those could stay in one place since I didnt see any vacuums around, anyway. I handed the gun and the blasting caps to my mother. Could you put all of that in your purse?

What are these sticks?

Theyre like fireworks, I said.

Are they legal?

Just as legal as the AK-47 is, I said.

If I wasnt here, where would you put all of this stuff?

If you werent here, I said, I wouldnt be stopping.

Oh, fine, she said, and stuffed it all in her bag.

The light turned green, and I made my way through the intersection and then pulled into the church lot. There were about fifteen kids lingering, but only two cars getting washed. I pulled behind a yellow station wagon-the kind that was last sold in America when Carter was president-and then both my mother and I got out. My mother immediately lit up a cigarette, which clarified why shed wanted to stop the car so desperately.

A teenage boy walked up to the car with a bucket and a towel and his hand out. Its five dollars, he said. He had all the urgency of molasses.

What does the money go toward? I asked.

Were trying to earn enough money to go to Disney World.

Why?

The kid shrugged. We go every year, he said.

Yeah, I said. But why?

I dunno. Its fun.

Is it? I asked.

Do you want a car wash or what?

I reached into my wallet and pulled out a twenty. The kid reached for it and I yanked it back, ripping it in two. Heres the deal, I said. Im going to be standing right here. If you go anywhere near the trunk of the car, Im going to keep the other half of this bill. If you manage to stay away from the trunk, Ill give you the other half, plus five bucks. Deal?

Why dont you just wash your own car?

My mom wont let me, I said.

The kid seemed to understand this universal truth and started to get to work on the Charger without another word. I stood back and watched him work for a few minutes and tried to recall the last time Id stood in this exact spot. It was only a few miles from my mothers house, but wasnt in a part of Miami I tended to visit all that often, since it also happened to be just a few streets from my old high school. It was bad enough when my mother bumped into my ex-classmates-or the families of my ex-classmates-and told them I was back in town.

Shed invariably tell them I was free to do odd jobs for them, or shed just give them my number and encourage them to ask me for help. This sort of help typically involved me saving them from human traffickers, drug kingpins and particularly violent gangster rappers. Frankly, it was easier dealing with the various rogue governments and jilted assassins sent to kill me than it was with people who knew me when I was fifteen.

The kids working the car wash all looked liked kids in Florida always have-which is to say that they were all wearing flip-flops, shorts and T-shirts and had a slight sunburn on their cheeks. Their hair was slightly shaggy and they had the air of nonchalance people possess before they start paying taxes or taking palpable risk.

I cant imagine I had ever looked anything like them.

Why didnt I ever take part in any charity car washes as a kid? I asked my mother.

I always wanted you to, she said.

What does that mean?

Well, you and your brother, Nate, were always so industrious. I just thought it would be wonderful if you were engaged in some of the philanthropic events I was interested in.

What were you interested in?

Well, Michael, that doesnt matter, she said.

No. Now Im curious.

Well, I always wanted to be involved with that thing where you went to another country and did things.

The Peace Corps? You were interested in joining the Peace Corps?

Yes, she said. She exhaled a huge plume of smoke and stared at me. Dont give me that look, Michael. I was a very active person when you were a child. You dont remember, obviously. You didnt just develop your sense of wanderlust on your own.