Samson, Chapter One

Per Granered didn’t like his name.

It garbled in his mouth with his new American accent, “R”s and “G”s sat in his throat, erecting a wall between his tongue and his teeth like a growl.

Swedish had never agreed with him. Something sort of soft and pathetic about it, never quite making a point. Cobbling together syllables without adding meaning. It’s a utilitarian language- economic and efficient in a country that is too cold and too dark most of the year to mince words. The Swedish word for supermarket translates to “things-to-live-with-by-store.”

But English…English heightened reality. Embellished with the simplest turn of phrase. ”Super” market. What was so super about it? He liked how persuasive it was.

So that first summer in Texas, back in ‘86, he took to imitating the other men on the oyster boat. Trying to replicate the way Russ and Destin would personify the mundane, whistling through their teeth. They wouldn’t just eat, they would, “Muster up some grub.” They wouldn’t just toss a fish back into the water, they would, “Set her free.” It didn’t take long before Per’s accent disappeared, his name the only clunky intrusion. He winced the way it gave him up every time he said it.

“Yer name is what?” Russ furrowed his brow and eyed him up and down like he was looking for something.

“Like the fruit,” Per lied. The three letters of his name make a sound that doesn’t exist in this language, and certainly not in Texas. But he had learned to make the association to skip the idiotic charade of passing weak attempts at pronunciation back and forth. In ten years, there will be an oil painting of a bowl of pears that hangs above his fireplace, taunting him like a secret, a reminder of the person he invented when he first leaned into the American R and called himself “Pear.”

Russ tossed his head back and laughed, “You hear that, Des? Never had a fruit on board! Imma call you Sam. How’s that, Sam? This here is Delilah,” Russ said, gesturing to the boat.

“You know that story, Sam?”

Per shook his head no.

“Delilah’s a temptress. She’s always pulling you out to sea, reeling you in for more.”

Russ winked with a knowing look Per didn’t quite understand.

It was hard work on board the Delilah, but rewarding. Per liked to sit on deck after a long day and listen to Russ and Dustin talk about women and hunting and Vietnam. Sometimes they would all blend together between the summer heat and the haze of beer and whiskey. You gotta find your target, aim, and pull the trigger at just the right moment to sink a kill.

They taught him how to shuck and debone and watch the way the water moves before tossing the net or laying anchor. They showed him where the best corners are to pick up a nice, clean chick in every town along the Rio Grande.

When the summer turned to fall, Russ sent him off with a roll of cash in his hand.

“Done good, Sam. You come n’ find us next season.”

And just like that, he was on his own again, mulling over his new names, practicing his consonants and trying on a Texas man’s walk, relishing in the possibilities of fresh anonymity.

Per walked and walked. He thumbed his way down back roads and hopped trains and camped his way through the midwest, like the movies he grew up watching. He washed dishes and dug ditches and laid cable when he got hungry. At some point he found himself packing Bibles in a factory warehouse. The generic red ones you see in church pews. Mass-produced NIV hard covers. He stood on the line in a giant cement room, fitting Bibles into boxes, everything but the Good Book turning blue in his vision under the fluorescent light and a single window far in the corner. It took about a month before boredom got the best of him and he finally cracked one open. He let the pages fall open on the book of Judges. The name Delilah grazed his eye. Visions of the Texas sun on the boat he had grown fond of filled his head. He began to read, at first off-handedly and then with an insatiable curiosity. He read the story of Samson and Delilah until he finally understood what Russ had teased him about when they first met. He was flattered and offended at the same time. This Samson, he read, had supernatural strength. Could fight off any man and conquer any obstacle with ease, except Delilah. She wielded her sexuality over him, luring him into a sense of security, without him even noticing. Until one day she found out that it was his long hair which was the source of his strength. In the dead of night, she cut it all off, and he became a mortal man.

The foreman noticed Per reading the Bible and came down to talk with him.

“Would you mind if I prayed for you?” he said.

No one had ever prayed for Per.

It seemed an awkward but innocuous request, so he nodded, and the foreman spoke gently with his hand resting on Per’s shoulder. Per suddenly regretted his assent.

“Dear God, I pray you meet us here on this day and reveal yourself to Per. Give his heart a spirit of lightness, find him through the dark and reveal yourself to him with love and goodness so that he might not be lost in this weary world.”

Per felt uncomfortable, but not in a way that he ever had before. He did not believe in anything. This person’s words seeped into his skin in a way that unnerved him. He walked through the rest of his day unsettled. What did he mean, “that he may not be lost in the dark?” he couldn’t shake the feeling. It made him angry.

Every day he returned to the warehouse and began to read the Bible more and more. On his lunch break, he would take his cheese sandwich and sit under the fluorescent break room light, making his way through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Mathew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians. Revelation.

Until he couldn’t stand it any longer.

That night, he woke up covered in hot sweat, completely paralyzed. He couldn't sit or speak, he couldn't move his arms or legs.

He felt as though someone was in the room.

He felt an intense fear, as if someone was going to kill him even though no one was there at all.

In a moment of desperation, he closed his eyes and began to pray,

"Dear God. If you are real. Please take this feeling from me, and I will believe in you. I promise. I promise, take it from me. And I will believe."

His breathing slowed and his body returned to normal.

The next day, Per wandered into Calvary Temple.

The church was small, no frills. Catholic.

Per wasn’t sure if there was something specific about catholicism, but they had the Pope, so surely they were the closest to right if we’re talking about God.

He started going to Sunday school and Wednesday nights and leading a small group.

It was easy enough. Church had a language, he noticed. He was very good at learning languages. So while he didn’t really understand what he was saying, Per watched as eyes closed and heads nodded in sacred agreement when he used words like “redemption,” “covenant,” and anything from the Sermon on the Mount. He chuckled to himself. A fine line between the fear that it was real, and the Holy Spirit might punish him for not keeping his end of the bargain, and the rush of satisfaction, of power, in becoming a Man of God, kept him carving out his new identity.

He doesn’t remember when things started to get out of hand. The more he delved into religion, the more he found himself needing to find a release from it. He skulked around seedy night clubs and back rooms. Testing out each new powder and pill with the curiosity of a chemist.

He never stopped having sex with the women on the corner like Russ and Destin taught him. He just started having sex with everyone else too. The Deacon’s wife, the Bishop’s daughter. He felt himself getting stronger, and angrier. The more he lied to his new friends in the congregation, the more disgust he felt with how easy it was to pull their strings, bend their blood, fill their heads with hope he didn’t share.

Pastor Eric waded through the sea of people after service one day, where Per had given a powerful anecdote on the virtue of self-discipline, and found him chatting by the free coffee and donuts.

“Brother, that was a mighty message you delivered up there today. I’m thankful for your fellowship. But, say, I didn’t catch your name?” Pastor Eric beamed.

Per looked up from his styrofoam cup of watered down coffee with a glimmer in his eye, “Samson,” he said, “But you can call me, Sam.”