The Trinity Game

self-indulgent reason: because God had the cosmic equivalent of a bar bet going with Satan.
    Daniel did not like this God very much.
    The priests who took Daniel in at thirteen had tried to reframe the Book of Job for him. They said that the story does not tell us
why
the virtuous suffer, it tells us
how
to suffer. It doesn’t explain the existence of evil, but it tells us that the existence of evil is one of God’s many mysteries.
    The priests were big on God’s Many Mysteries. It was their default response to the most troubling of Daniel’s many questions. But Daniel had not come to the Church to embrace mysteries. He’d come in search of a miracle.
    He’d lived the first dozen years of his life believing that his uncle was a real apostle, working real miracles on God’s behalf. For a boy who’d killed his own mother while being born and caused his father’s suicide, this was no small thing. God had chosen Tim Trinity as His messenger on earth, and He’d chosen Daniel to be His messenger’s companion. That meant God did not despise Daniel. It meant Daniel was worthy of love, despite everything.
    That was how his uncle had explained it, and it did make things better. It became the One True Thing that Daniel could hold on to and feel good about, despite the ugly way his life had begun. Trinity told the boy that God loved him, and Trinity always treated him with love, even when drinking. And he wasn’t a bad guardian either. He always made sure the boy did his schoolwork on the road, made sure he passed his exams when they returned to New Orleans.
    It was a strange childhood, but not an unhappy one. There were other preachers’ kids to play with on the tent revival circuit, and Daniel learned many things on the road. Tim taught Daniel how to talk his way out of a jam and—
if that don’t work
—how to slip a punch and run away and—
if that don’t work—
how to deliver a punch and—
if that don’t work—
how to shoot a pistol. “Man who lives on the road gotta take
responsibility
for his physical safety.” And so Daniel learned things, shooting tin cans and sparring with Tim, that the kids in school would not learn until they were adults, if ever.
    But as Daniel grew, so grew his doubts. By the time he reached age ten, willful blindness was required not to see the flimflam, the con artistry and sleight-of-hand at work behind the miraculous healings Trinity performed. Living in a perpetual state of denial was exhausting. After a few years, at the age of thirteen, he just couldn’t keep it up, couldn’t
not
see it for what it was. One day something just snapped, and it all came crashing down. Like a house of cards.
    He swallowed the pain, hiding it from his uncle, until they got back home to New Orleans. The first night home, as Tim slept, Daniel slipped silently out his bedroom window and shimmied down the drainpipe. He walked to the nearest Catholic church, knocked on the door, and declared himself an orphan, looking for a miracle.
    The priests took him in. They called in a doctor, who looked the boy over and pronounced him physically fit, and over the next few days they administered a series of tests to assess his psychological condition—
intellectually curious, emotionally guarded, spiritually deprived
—followed by exams to assess his academic standing, which allowed him to skip a year in school.
    After a few schoolyard punch-ups established Daniel’s position in the hierarchy of boys, he settled into life at the church’s boarding school reasonably well. But the priests were concerned about his ongoing “anger issues” and got him into boxing. They said it would help him “work it out of his system.”
    Daniel’s laptop speakers pinged, bringing him back from his thoughts. He reached across the bed and drew the computer near. A chat window had opened on the screen—someone was trying to make contact.
    The message said: Daniel Byrne?
    He read the username in the chat window: PapaLegba. He didn’t know anyone who went by that handle, but he knew what it meant. Papa Legba was a prominent
loa
in voodoo mythology. Guardian of the Crossroads, facilitator of communication between the material and spirit worlds, between the living and the dead. A storyteller—and sometimes a trickster.
    Daniel typed: This is Daniel Byrne. Who am I speaking with?
    After a few seconds, the person on the other end wrote: And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
    Daniel typed: John