Axel said.

 Axel said. 

I called Axel at church, where there is still a landline. He was there, on the land, in his office. I walked down and rang the bell. Lucy "Peter Frampton" Burke let me in. "He's waiting for you," she said.
     He was, behind his desk as always, the wall of books behind him. Leaning back in his chair, feet crossed at the ankles on his desk. He pulled them down and swiveled round to face me. "What's up?"
     "Pretty much what I told you on the phone. Uncle Albert and I were talking about Cora Tull, the character in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying - and other Coras - and wondered what you thought."
     "Because As I Lay Dying is one of my favorite novels?"
     "Is it?"
     "No. I did take a Southern Lit course in college, but that was a Lutheran school in Minnesota."
     "But you remember the novel."
     "Sort of."
     "And you remember Cora Tull?"

Brother Jethro Tull

He had barely, but he'd looked her up while I was walking down. "She's one of these women, quite common really, that pride themselves in being good neighbors but especially to neighbors that they can look down on, neighbors that need good neighbors because they're always in trouble or they're sinners that need 'loving' correction.
     "But they're not always women. Many become Southern Baptist preachers, and none of them are women. But I don't want to pick on the Southern Baptists. They're not only preachers. Hardly. They're pundits, they're scientists, they work at NGOs. They're every self-righteous jack- or jillass with a golden corncob up their ass and a social media account.
     "They're me and you, though you may be the least of the thousands of problems.
     "It makes you wonder about the Prophets, doesn't it? Why people didn't listen to them. They, the prophets, know the truth that others ignore - and will continue to ignore - but they have to tell them. On the other hand, the others are thinking, 'These self-righteous jackasses think they know everything, and they just can't shut up about it.'
     "And they haven't shut up about it. Think about this: the ones that remain in the canon of Scripture do so because they turned out to be right." Axel took a breath. He scratched the sparse hair at the back of his head. He let the breath out with something between a raspberry and a sigh. "Have I gotten off the subject?"
     "Maybe not entirely," I said. Just above his hand, which was still attached to the back of his head, were two books on Luther, Bainton's Here I Stand and Erik Erikson's Young Man Luther. I pointed: "Have you read that?" He turned the chair, following my finger. "The Erikson," I said.
     "I have. But not long after I read Cora Tull. You?"
     "I tried," I said, "not too long ago. He spends the introduction and the first couple of chapters explaining how he can tell you things about Luther that you could never figure out, because you're not as smart as he is. No one could, before him."
     "I don't think Cora Tull thinks she's smarter. But Luther might have."
     "Yes," I said. "Calvin, too."

"When you are right and people don't listen to you . . . ?" Axel said.
     "I don't know. Not self-righteous. Or angry. A little irked maybe, but mostly sad. The last thing I feel is puffed-up."
     "But you're not one of those that thinks they know the mind of God."
     "Nor do I want to be," I said, meaning not one that thinks; I didn't ever want to know the mind of God. Or, at least, I haven't since I was fifteen. "That's too much for me," I said.
     "Psalm 139," Axel said.
     "Is it?"
     "Verse 6: "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; I cannot attain it."
    "Exactly."
     "'Irked.' I like that," Axel said. "Not a word I hear every day."

                                                                          02.17.24