Skulls & Bones

Yale seemed pretty much like Harvard except that it was a little more polite. She saw the similar names of the Halls, but things were a little more playful. It was more serene at Yale. Harvard, to her at least, was tumultuous.

Skulls & Bones did not accept women. This did not appear to matter to Trisha Trousseau for she did not see any difference between males and females.

"You are a Skull, aren't you?" she asked. Somehow she knew that he was a Skull.

"We do not accept women," he responded.

"God created both men and women in his image," she retorted.

"We do not believe in God. Our allegiance is to the United States of America as defined by the Founding Fathers."

"Our Founding Fathers believed in God."

"They believed in a rational God and we have divined his rational structure. We no longer need him since we understand him."

"But you do not understand woman," she responded.

For one reason or another, he found this humourous.

Trisha Trousseau dressed up as a man and attended a Skulls & Bones meeting.

"We do not accept Jews," someone blurted out.

"If Christ is Jewish, then God is Jewish. Everyone is Jewish."

The Skulls & Bones members were amused.

That very night in Mid-October, she received an invitation to join the Skulls & Bones.

The Skulls were dressed up almost in a Halloween-ish costume. White bones showed over a dark, black background. They reminded her of the Grateful Dead. They were all on the second floor of the Secret Hall, looking down on her. She was asked to enter a coffin. Trisha was fascinated by vampires.

"Tell us about yourself," someone said. It was almost completely dark within the coffin, and her feet were dangling out. The coffin was open at the bottom.

"There's really not that much to say. I'm Jewish although my name is French. I like adventure. I enjoy watching sports. My parents are professors."

"Are your parents spies? Do they work for Israel?"

"No, they don't. Even if they were, I wouldn't know..."

"Tell us about your sex life."

"That's none of your business."

That was none of anyone's business except God's business. God told her things. God told her the truth. A voice inside of her heart would tell her the truth. At times, the truth would be terrifying, but God would tell her that truth also. Trisha found all sorts of ways of finding out if the truth of God were indeed the truth of the people whom she saw around her. It was indeed the truth of those around her. She had almost never been wrong. This had been the talent that Trisha was given. At times, she prayed that she would be released from this gift. There was no answer. It was strange. God was all knowing.

Not only that. Sometimes God would never tell her the truth about some trifling situation. She could not see what was literally in front of her.

Her talent had enabled her to get straight A's all the time since she attended school. She would ask God what would be on the test and God would tell her. There was a feeling of deja-vous that she treasured, that became a part of the heart of her happiness, that was more precious to her than life itself. She had been here before. Somehow, she had been reincarnated or sent back to the same life she had already lived. She thought about eternal recurrence or the rock that Sysiphus kept rolling up the hill. It did get easier and there was comfort in knowing what a person was going to do next all the time. It also brought a terrible weight... that somehow one's life had been predetermined. Trisha's soul was within God's mind millions and millions of years before she had been created as a human being. She soul had already been sanctified by God, chosen for salvation. She had believed this all her life. She understood God better than other people who only seemed to see the nicer side of life.

"Why do you want to be a Skull?" he asked.
"What is your name?"
"Kim."
"Isn't that a female name?"
"Either way."
"God asked me to join the Skulls & Bones?"
"How do you know that the voice you hear is God's voice?"
"The voice has always told me the truth."
"The Devil can also tell you the truth. Reason also tells you the truth."
"It's an intuition."
"How can you trust your intuition."
"An intuition is a thought that has become second-hand. If life proves the intuitions to be true, then I trust them."
"What is your intuition about me?"
She could see his face now. He almost seemed too innocent.
"You are going to suffer."

Kim liked Trisha. She had conviction. He had always hated the line, "The best lack conviction." in Yeats famous poem. The best were the ones who had conviction. It did not matter whether they were conservatives or democrats. The best had to bind their relativism with an absolute sense of morals. He did not believe in God and detested people who wore their religion on their sleeves. There was something so annoying about people who were so anxious to convert people into their own camp. He wanted, more than anything, certainties in life. Even if there was no certainty in life, he could be certain of the fact that there were no certainty. Death was a certainty, but it occurred after life. Looking at Trisha, he found a curious feeling curling up into a smile of the lips.

Trisha felt contempt. She did not know why, but it occurred to her that Kim was a lightweight. The penetrating depth of Freud, Dostoevsky, or Nietzsche was something that she had only half-understood through conversations with her parents.

Kim averted his eyes. Her blue-green eyes had a golden halo. She seemed almost like a Madonna from the Renaissance. That's how he imagined her or was he hallucinating. She was almost too...

Trisha no longer wanted to be a Skull. Something about Kim disturbed her. It was perhaps his profound shallowness. She wondered, "Is there nothing in life but that?" It seemed to be the truth. He wanted her. She felt it. Then he would feel superior. Was that it? Did we do everything in our lives to feel superior or better than others? Was that happiness? Were we not all equal in the presence of an all-knowing, all-powerful God?

She had always loved Psalm 23. "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." It was in the presence of his enemy Saul that God prepared a table. God anointed David as King with oil. She felt that God loved David, and that David had really felt loved. It was a beautiful poem. When she felt completely alone and misunderstood, she would walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and feel God's loving presence, his long gray beard overflowing like a waterfall, somehow intoxicating like wine. Kim stood over her, gazing down on her beautiful face. He was mesmerized or captivated by her. He just couldn't explain what it was able about her. She was literally radiating, like an angel or someone sublimely human.

Trisha stared into her father's eyes. They were always warm, filled with the well of understanding. Her mother's eyes were hard by comparison. She tried to understand his eyes:

"Do you believe in God, dad?"

It was a simple question. There was nothing fancy about it. She knew that he would say no. He was certain that there was no God:

"I mean, do you believe that some being really cares for us. That someone divinely powerful speaks to us about the truth of ourselves and others and tries to make us come to terms with our hypocrisy?"

Robert stared into her eyes. He smiled:

"For you, there is a God. For me, there are human communities with deeply complex human concerns. Perhaps God speaks to these communities. If there is a God, Trisha, he really cares for you."

Trisha smiled. She really wanted to ask him. It was really difficult for him not to ask him the question.

"Dad. This community that you speak about. would you do anything for that community, even something immoral. I mean, you have to choose right... sometimes you have to lie in order to protect someone you love. There are priorities... right. Tell me, dad, how do you know that you are doing the right thing at the right time?"

Robert raised his hand right underneathe his front hair:

"You must have a clear goal. You have to look at things from your goal. Is your goal moral and good?"

Trisha smiled.