Riven Page 9

  “This joint meeting of the circuit elders shall come to order,” Paul said.

  “Excuse me, Pierce,” a man from Colfax said, “but I need to say again that there is no official circuit, thus there can’t be a joint meeting of our elders. This meeting was not announced, and there was no published agenda, so this is nothing but some personal vendetta.”

  “Duly noted,” Paul said. “Thank you, Mr. Robert’s Rules of Order. Patricia, please put that in the minutes.”

  “If there can’t be a meeting, there can’t be minutes,” the protester said, rising. “I’m not going to be part of this, and, Reverend Carey, if I were you, I’d not subject myself to it either.”

  The man stormed out.

  “We still have a quorum,” Paul said.

  “What’s going on, Paul?” Thomas said.

  “All in due time.”

  “I’m out of here too,” another said, and he and the two other outsiders left.

  “All right, no problem,” Paul said. “Patricia, this is now solely a meeting of the Oldenburg elders, all present and accounted for.”

  “Well,” Thomas said, “I am as curious as I can be, but must I remind you that I also am an elder here, and this is the first I’ve known of this meeting?”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Paul said, “but you are out of order. For the purposes of this meeting, you are here as the pastor and not as an elder.”

  “Um, pardon me, Paul,” a younger elder said, “but officially I’m the secretary. As your wife is not an elder—no offense—shouldn’t I be taking the minutes?”

  “Fine,” Paul and Patricia said in unison, and she made a show of slapping her notebook shut and putting away her pencil. But she did not leave.

  The other elders looked as if they would rather have been anywhere else.

  “Okay,” Paul said, “meeting’s called to order and all that.” He bowed his head and closed his eyes. “Lord, lead us in these difficult talks, and may we do Your will. Amen.” He looked up. “Pastor Tom, we got us a problem.”

  The Laundromat

  “You bring my money?” Tatlock said.

  “No, but I brought a down payment.”

  “How much?”

  Brady emptied his pocket onto the top of a washing machine and had to catch a stray rolling penny.

  Tatlock laughed. “Four bucks and change? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Listen, Mr. Tatlock, and just hear me out. You’re right, I did steal from you, but I know it was wrong and I’m sorry and I owe you the money. I’ll get it—I swear I will. Thing is, I didn’t even spend it all. I had your money, but now it’s missing.”

  “Someone stole the stolen money?”

  “That’s right. But I’ll do anything to keep you from calling the cops, because I’m watching out for my little brother, trying to get my grades up so I can stay in the school play, and I’ve already applied for another job. If I get it, the first two hundred is yours, and I mean it.”

  “You’re in a school play?”

  Tatlock sounded both skeptical and curious, so Brady told him all about it.

  “Now you see, Brady, this is the kid I thought I was hiring. You seemed thoughtful and industrious enough. I like that you care about your little brother. And I appreciate your admitting you did wrong. But actions have consequences. I’m not giving you your job back, and I’m not going to recommend you for any other job. But I will do this: as long as you bring me at least forty dollars a week, every Sunday night, same time, right here, until your debt’s paid, I won’t report you.”

  “Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I really do.”

  “I want you to learn from this, Brady. You don’t get away with stuff in life. You can make something of yourself. I’ll never forgive myself if going easy on you makes you think you can pull something else like this.”

  “Believe me, it’ll never happen again.”

  Brady left, seething. Oh, it would happen again all right. He just wouldn’t allow himself to be found out next time.

  Oldenburg Rural Chapel

  Silence hung in the tiny classroom before Paul Pierce suddenly became parental, his voice low and calm. “Pastor Tom, I know you’re a man of the Word, that you care about the Scriptures and doctrine. I’ve noticed from day one your well-worn Bible and that you can quote from it by memory. I wonder if, as we get into the matter at hand, you would favor us by reading aloud 1 Timothy 3:1-5.”

  Oh no . . .

  “First Timothy happens to be one of the books I have memorized. The passage says, ‘This is a trustworthy saying: “If someone aspires to be an elder, he desires an honorable position.” So an elder must be a man whose life is above reproach. He must be faithful to his wife. He must exercise self-control, live wisely, and have a good reputation. He must enjoy having guests in his home, and he must be able to teach. He must not be a heavy drinker or be violent. He must be gentle, not quarrelsome, and not love money. He must manage his own family well, having children who respect and obey him. For if a man cannot manage his own household, how can he take care of God’s church?’”

  Paul cleared his throat. “Now, Tom, would you agree that if a man is not qualified to be an elder, he’s sure not qualified to be a pastor?”

  “I would agree.”

  “And that if a pastor kept it a secret that he was not qualified, that should cost him his job?”

  Grace gasped, and Thomas put a hand on her knee.

  “Of course,” Thomas said. “But I’d appreciate it if you would just get to your point, Paul.”

  “Oh, I figure you know where this is going. As I told the leaders of the five congregations, Patricia and I truly wanted to welcome you and your lovely wife and throw an installation service that would honor you.”

  “It did, and we appreciate it.”

  “But we had hoped to surprise you. You see, we wanted to do more than just read a couple of letters from old friends and have the denomination chief make an appearance. So we—or I should say Patricia, because she’s thoughtful this way—thought it would be nice if your daughter could be here too. Patricia took what little she had learned of Ravinia—” he pronounced it with a long first I, and Thomas corrected him—“Fine. My apologies. Patricia took the trouble of tracking her down at the law school there at Emory and was ready to pay for her to come and surprise you tonight. You know what she found?”

  Thomas fought to hide that his whole body was quaking. “You’re aware, Paul, that my daughter is no child. She’s twenty-four years ol—”

  “Do you know what Patricia found, Tom? Your daughter, the daughter of an elder and the pastor of this church, is living with a man who is not her husband!”

  “And you lay that at my feet?”

  “You’re her father! How does having a daughter like that fit with the last verse you just quoted?”

  Grace put a hand firmly over Thomas’s, and he set his jaw.

  “No answer?”

  Grace pressed Thomas’s hand harder. She spoke just above a whisper. “If you are men of God, we would ask that you pray for our daughter.”

  “Oh, we have and we will. You may rest assured of that. And we will pray for you, too. But until your husband can ‘manage his own household,’ as he just quoted, he will not be taking care of our church.”

  “God’s church,” Grace said.

  “Same thing.”

  “Frankly, sir, it doesn’t sound like it.”

  “You disagree with God’s Word?” Paul turned to a skinny, bald man on his right. “Ernie, I believe you have a motion?”

  Ernie looked pained and his fingers fluttered as he straightened a small sheet of notebook paper before him. “Uh, yes. Yes, I do. I make a motion that—”

  “You move,” Paul said.

  “Pardon?”

  “You don’t ‘make a motion,’ Ernie. Let’s get this right. You move.”

  “Okay. I move that the Reverend Thomas Carey be removed from the office of pastor of the Oldenburg Rural Bible Chu
rch Circuit until such time—”

  “Excuse me, Paul,” Patricia whispered. “Without the other elders, we’d better just say ‘of the Oldenburg Rural Bible Chapel’ for now.”

  “Well, he can’t pastor the others if he’s not pastoring here.”

  “That’s up to them.”

  “But I’m—we’re in charge of them.”

  “Let’s just do it this way for now.”

  “Fine. Let the minutes show the motion is that Carey be removed from being pastor of just this church. Go on, Ernie.”

  “—until such time as he has proven he can manage his own household.”

  “And in the meantime?” Paul said.

  “Oh yeah.” Ernie looked back at his sheet. “And in the meantime he will be subject to discipline by the board of elders for failure to reveal that he was not managing his own household. Such discipline shall include a confession before the congregations—”

  “Singular for now,” Patricia said.

  “—congregation and weekly meetings with the chairman of the elders for instruction and correction.”

  Thomas leaned back and stared at the ceiling. Then he focused on Paul. “If you think for one second that I am going to—”

  “Excuse me, Tom, but there’s more.”

  Ernie turned his sheet over. “Be it understood by these present that during the term of said discipline—man, this really reads funny—Reverend Carey’s salary shall be suspended and he shall be required to pay rent on the parsonage.”

  “Did you discuss this with Jimmie Johnson?” Thomas said.

  “All in favor?” Paul said.

  But Thomas and Grace were on their way out.

  As Thomas slowly drove back to the parsonage, Grace buried her face in her hands.

  “I’m worried about you, sweetheart,” he said.

  She straightened. “Don’t worry about me, Thomas. Hatred has a way of clarifying things.”

  “Surely you don’t hate anyone.”

  “I’m praying about that, but no, I was referring to the Pierces’ hatred of us.”

  “This can’t stand,” Thomas said. “I’ll get hold of Mr. Johnson in the morning, and—”

  “He’s out of town.”

  “But I’m sure he’s reachable by phone.”

  “This is beyond him, Thomas. You know the hallmark of the association is the autonomy of the local bodies. These people have to stand up to Paul. That’s all there is to it.”

  “The rank and file probably know nothing about this.”

  “You’ve worked in small churches all your life; you don’t think the phone lines are melting by now?”

  “Well, hon,” he said, “I’m not about to turn and run.”

  “And I don’t have the energy to stay and fight. I won’t allow you to be put through this. If there is not immediate opposition to this craziness, we’re leaving.”

  13

  Touhy Trailer Park

  Brady Darby felt strangely flat as he made his way home from the Laundromat. His mother was dozing before the television, a freshly lit cigarette in the ashtray. Brady took the smoke and turned down the TV, but as he undressed in the bedroom, he had second thoughts about smoking where Peter was sleeping.

  He quickly finished and stubbed out the butt, then sat on the edge of his bed, just a few feet from his brother. He felt an urge to talk to Peter, to admit what he had done and say he had learned from it and wanted to be sure Peter never made the same mistake. Might things actually start to turn for the better for Brady if he somehow protected his brother this way?

  But no. He could never admit that to Peter. And Brady had no intention of changing his own ways. He just had to be more careful, that’s all. He felt like a wimp for confessing to Tatlock, but he had at least bought himself a little time to pay back the money.

  Brady stretched out on his back in the darkness, his hands behind his head. Even with everything he had been going through and worrying about, still he had succeeded in memorizing pages and pages of the Birdie script. He enjoyed impressing Nabertowitz, and knowing everyone else’s lines really helped his own performance. Maybe by pulling this acting thing off he could hide the person he really was, at least enough to pave the way for Peter not to follow his example.

  Brady felt comfortable in his skin, comfortable with his look. Some said there was no future in it, that everybody in the park lived for Friday nights when they could start a hard weekend of partying and booze and dope and then try to recover in time to keep financing that life on an hourly wage somewhere. How did people like the Norths do it? It couldn’t be that they had just been born into better lives. Brady was determined to create the same kind of existence for himself, doing whatever he had to do, short of going to college and getting a so-called good job.

  As he drifted toward sleep, Brady shook off the shame of having been caught. He looked forward to the next day—well, not to school, but to rehearsal. And after that he would visit Alejandro at Dennis Asphalt again.

  Oldenburg

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to Ravinia,” Grace said, slumped on the couch next to Thomas. “I’ve wanted us both to talk to her. But what do we say? She knows how we would feel about her and Dirk. And by now she has to know we know. If she thinks these people are treating us shamefully because of her, she won’t feel responsible. She’ll just be angry and want to strike out at them.”

  “It would be hard to blame her. Now, Grace, please rest. It’s clear you’re not well, and I need you to be strong.”

  “Oh, I’m strong enough, and I won’t sleep anyway—not until we know what’s going to happen here.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen here. You know I won’t agree to discipline in this case, especially under Paul Pierce.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that. You’d do that over my dead—”

  “Don’t even say that, sweetheart.”

  “You know what I mean. I need to know, and I mean tonight, whether the people are going to let this stand.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “Call someone. Call Ernie.”

  Thomas rummaged in a kitchen drawer for the church directory, but as he reached for the phone, it rang. It was Jimmie Johnson.

  “So you’ve had your meeting?”

  “Yes, sir,” Thomas said. “You knew about this?”

  “Yes. I wish I could have stayed for it, but my trip couldn’t be avoided. Is it true you told Pierce you wanted him and his wife out of the way, out of leadership?”

  “Just the opposite, Jimmie. Do you have time to hear my side of it?”

  “Sure, but let me tell you why you’re not going to win this one, Thomas.”

  “No chance?”

  “None, and here’s why. We get these squabbles all the time, and it’s always an old pillar’s word against the new guy. The denomination used to investigate and hold hearings, but with our local autonomy policy, our findings and our decisions have no teeth. We went through this with the previous two guys there, and Pierce skated through both of them. Too many people in that church are on his payroll—or I should says his sons’, given that Paul is so-called retired—so no one stands up to him. It’s a losing proposition. Best I can do is give you a letter that says we believe you are without fault here, which might help in your next slot.”

  Thomas sighed. “I can’t believe it’s all fallen apart so quickly. We really thought we’d found the right fit here.” He outlined for Johnson the decision of the elders.

  Jimmie was silent for a moment. Then, “Suspension, discipline, and rent. All right, Thomas, I’m going to tell you up front that this is pure gossip and that I have no business passing it along. I do it only to encourage you, but you are not free to quote me or use it.”

  “There’s no need,” Thomas said. “I imagine Paul has a few skeletons.”

  “It’s worse than that. It goes to hypocrisy. He has three grown sons, not a one of them living for the Lord. They don’t even attend church. Six, seven marriages be
tween ’em. There, I’ve said it, and that’s all I’m going to say.”

  “What’s your counsel, Jimmie?”

  “Pack up. Get out. Fold your tent and steal away.”

  “And he wins.”

  “Yeah, he wins.”

  “And where am I supposed to go? I can’t keep doing this, sir. Grace is under the weather, and—”

  “Listen, have you ever thought of getting out of the pastorate?”

  “Jimmie, I was called to this. It’s all I know. What would I do with myself? Teach Bible college? I don’t have enough education. Missionary work? I’m too old.”

  “Actually I heard about something just the other day. Let me look into it and get back to you. Wherever you land, leave a phone number at headquarters, and I’ll find you.”

  “I have no idea where that will be.”

  “You’ve got friends, don’t you? Someone who’ll take you in until you land on your feet?”

  “I’ll think about it,” Thomas said. “And thanks for hearing me out.”

  “I’m awfully sorry, Thomas. I should have given you more warning, but I guess I just naively hoped you’d be the guy who could work with Paul.”

  When Thomas hung up, Grace was at his elbow. And when he had filled her in, she reached for the phone.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Do you trust me, Thomas?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Then let me do this.” She called the moving trailer rental place and left a message that she would be there when they opened in the morning and wanted the same size unit they had dropped off not long before.

  “You don’t want to take a few days?” Thomas said. “Say our good-byes?”

  “I don’t want to be here a minute longer than I have to be. And the last thing I want is Paul or Patricia showing up to try to talk you into submitting to his authority.”

  “Oh, I reckon Mrs. Carey would drive him off her land with a shotgun.”