Sam refuses to confess his sins.
I was about to attend a church with a woman. Both were growing stranger by the minute. I had to know more and I tried another tack.
“Won’t going to church with me be a kind of ‘date?’ Won’t you need the churches’ permission for that as well?”
She shook her head as though explaining to a child.
“That’s different, You are a friend and we’re attending church.”
“Very well. You may call me Sam.”
I did not wish to have it known I was a Secman and I told her so. I was surprised when Mirabelle simply nodded agreement.
“Very well…Sam,” she said, smiling.
She thought for a moment, appraising me. She had called me by my first name. I could tell that Mirabelle was becoming more relaxed in my presence although I was one of the feared Secmen.
She became shy.
“Of course, if you wanted to take me on a date … I would have to ask Father Bocus first.”
Her forehead wrinkled prettily.
“Do you want to? Date me, that is? It would be all right with me. You are nice … or don’t security men date girls?”
Our discussion was taking an unexpected turn. I was a young healthy male in this reality. Nonetheless my mind was that of an octogenarian with all the long experience of seven decades. I wanted no romantic entanglements.
“You are an attractive young woman, Mirabelle. However, we must know each other much better before I would consider asking you for a date.”
“Naturally,” her smile was back. “I knew you were a gentleman.”
Her mind turned, once more to the church and business. She put on her hat and picked up her Bible from the table next to the door.
“Everybody has to give their testimony and confess their sins at least once a month or the elders will declare punishment. Will you give your testimony at church?”
“Not tonight, Mirabelle.”
Or any night, I promised silently.
I would go with her. It was a way to find out more about what sort of a crazy world this was. Was I being wise?
We walked two blocks and, presently, we came to an austere one-story gray building with a sign across the front. It read in big gold block letters,
THE UNITED STATES CHURCH OF CHRIST
(Below it in smaller letters was written),
State Church No. 832296
The implications were ominous. When we arrived people were already passing through the wide double doors. A few looked at me curiously. My cloak covered my badges of office and I had explained to Mirabelle that I did not want her friends to feel intimidated or uncomfortable. We stopped outside the doors, her hand on my arm.
“This is my friend, Mr. Candel,” she told a group.
They nodded and I nodded and said nothing. At the door a dour, lean-faced, dark suited man held up a hand.
“Sir, you are new to our congregation. Do I know you?” he said.
I sensed a threat. There was thinly veiled danger in this soft-spoken, mealy-mouthed hypocrite. He had the face of a lecher and the soft white hands of a strangler.
Mirabelle came to my rescue.
“Father Bocus, Mr. Candel is a friend who saved me this afternoon from some rowdies in the street. I invited him to church. I hope that was all right?”
The preacher, a rictus smile on his face, held out a claw-like hand, not to greet me but with a demand.
“Quite all right. Our Leader and our Lord is pleased no matter what synod you attend, as long as you attend.”
I understood the warning.
A directive followed his cold greeting.
“May I see your identification card, Mr. Candel?”
“I did not want him to know that I was a security man and Mirabelle had promised not to say anything.
“I don’t have it with me, Reverend Bocus.”
For an unpleasant moment he fixed me in his hard gaze, his expression one of suspicion. Then he relaxed and painted the phony smile on his death mask face once more.
“Very well, my son; don’t let that happen again. Failure to carry your I.D. is a class two misdemeanor, as you well know. I won’t report you this time. Welcome to our church.”
“Some welcome,” I thought.
Next episode: The fun was only beginning.
Gene Paleno is an author and illustrator living in Witter Springs.
