The New Guy’s Not Working Out
by Daniel Davis
illustrations by Dave Dawson
They were no longer the Fundamentalist Union of Christian Knights. Chapter Underchairman Craig Pilon had griped too much. Something about an “offensive acromin,” or some other computer word he’d picked up at college. Well, what do you expect from a college boy? So Chapter Grandmaster Willis Funk had shut him up by agreeing to dump the “Knights” part of the name, even though that had been the Grandmaster’s favorite part – it had sounded bold and grand.
It wasn’t easy to shut Underchairman Pilon up. At first, he’d been assigned the title of Acolyte Pilon, but no, that wasn’t good enough for him.
“Acolyte? That sounds like 3.2 beer,” he griped.
He was just getting started. When he looked the word Acolyte up in some College dictionary, he insisted on a different title. Acolyte was too Catholic, and meant someone who fetched stuff. So they’d had to debate and bicker till they finally compromised on the title of Chapter Underchairman – for now. Pilon still thought it sounded “too subservient.”
So now they were the Fundamentalist Union of Christians. Just the two of them for now, but things were starting to look up. Underchairman Pilon reported some “potential success” at last week’s Spring Recruitment Drive at the feed store in Purgitsville, although the “potential recruit” he had spoken to that day had yet to appear out here at Chapter Headquarters. Still, Underchairman Pilon confidently awaited the appearance of the potential recruit, who had promised to “stop on by some day” and finish up their discussion on Jesus and sin and wickedness.
Grandmaster Funk caught himself doubting whether the potential recruit would ever actually show up, then chastised himself silently for not Keeping the Faith. He turned his attention to the agenda for today. The Underchairman would be here soon, and they’d start off with an hour of prayer and testimony. Then they’d write letters to the editors of various publications and news media outlets ’til about 11:00, then take the truck in to Morgantown and set up outside the clinic. Oh, yeah, they’d have to make a new sign for the Underchairman to hold, since his other one broke last week when he clocked that pregnant Negro heathen with it. Funk didn’t really approve of violence, but that was small potatoes compared to the violent murders going on inside that evil place. And the sign was no great loss – Pilon had griped about the punctuation, anyway. Plus they’d gotten some free publicity from the Morgantown media from the incident.
Maybe that afternoon they could picket the Quik-Stop that sold Playboy, or try some more recruiting at the college. Pilon, for all his schooling, hadn’t been very effective at signing up any other college kids. He had set up that interview with the campus radio station, but that had not gone well. The radio station kid had been a real smart-ass, laughing at their titles and Chapter name. He didn’t ask many questions about Jesus or Salvation. He just made a lot of jokes, and played some evil gang rapsta music whenever Grandmaster Funk tried to say anything. Well, he’ll be laughing out of the other side of his mouth when Jesus comes back, thought Funk. Every dog has his day, as the Good Book says.
He was surprised by the knocking at the front door of the Headquarters Trailer. Underchairman Pilon usually knocked once and came on in – this must not be him at the door. Could it be the potential Purgitsville recruit?
His high hopes were dashed when he opened the door and saw some long-haired hippie-type standing there. What was that Pilon thinking? This freak would never fit in.
“Hello,” the hippie said, warmly.
“You the new recruit?” muttered the Grandmaster suspiciously, not letting his guard down.
The hippie smiled and nodded. Willis scoffed and motioned for him to come in. This one seemed polite enough, but they always try to play it polite, at first. Then when your back’s turned, they’re stealing your possessions and selling them for drugs.
Funk kept his eyes glued to the brown-haired, bearded hippie as they sat down at the kitchen table.
“Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” he barked at the newcomer. The hippie smiled at him.
“Of course,” he replied.
“You know you ain’t ever gonna get into Heaven lookin’ like that. You need to get your hair cut.”
The hippie just sort of turned his head to the side and kept on smiling.
“I don’t think a person’s appearance is the important thing. What’s important is whether or not you have love in your heart,” he stated nicely but firmly.
“You got a lot to learn, rookie,” Willis pointed out.
The Grandmaster ended up giving the kid a chance. He didn’t like his looks, but he was polite, and he was a fellow Christian. And Membership really needed the boost. Willis had already forgotten the kid’s name – what had he said it was? Junior Josephson, or something like that. Something American anyway, which was the most important thing. Willis didn’t want to admit he’d already forgotten the kid’s name, so he tried to come up with a title for him – something he could call him.
“Acolyte Trainee? Vice Underchairman? Assistant Plebe? Any of those would be okay with me. I’m The Chapter Grandmaster, you know,” he announced.
“I don’t need any title or position,” the kid smiled.
Another troublemaker, thought Willis. “Well, you’ve got to have some rank, so we know what’s what around here. How’s about we make you the Vice Underchairman?” That ought to tick off Pilon, thought Willis. The hippie just kept smiling.
“Okay, so Vice Underchairman it is,” the Grandmaster decreed. “Now, Underchairman Pilon is usually in charge of training new members,” Willis hypothesized. “But since he’s running late this morning, I’ll have to take over. Now our agenda for today has us starting out with prayer and testifying. You’re new, so I’ll lead.”
Willis bowed his head to show that he was about to start, and the hippie reached out to join hands. Willis immediately yanked his hand back.
“Ain’t no need for that, ” he snapped.
Willis paused to compose himself after the hand-grasping incident, and began. “Oh Lord, Jesus Christ! You’re our Savior, and… King, and… Boss, and Lord, and we do what you say. You say ‘Jump,’ and we say ‘How High?'”
Willis had to stop for a second to figure out where to go from there. “Yes, we spread your Gospel every day, and we feel your awesome power of mighty strength, and use it to smite down our evil enemies, and followers of Satan and Beezelbulb. We accept your teachings into our hearts, so that we won’t go to eternal Hellfire and Bremstone, and we tell others of your teachings to try to make them change their evil ways. Amen.”
He wasn’t a natural orator, and had never led anyone in prayer before, except for Underchairman Pilon. He figured he’d done all right, for a guy who wasn’t any Oral Robbers or Jimmy Swagger. The hippie was still smiling, which was a good sign, although he might be on drugs, so it might not count.
“Well, next up is writing letters. I don’t know where Craig is, so I’ll have to train you in this, too, I guess.”
“Who do we write to? Potential recruits?”
“Well, sometimes. But we’ve got a big backlog of letters to the editor to take care of first. I’ll show you,” Willis explained. He pulled the Chapter Shoebox out of the closet and brought it to the table.
“These are clippings from the Godless Media that we need to respond to. It’s part of our mission to Educate the Masses and put down the Word of Satan in his many forms.” The hippie Vice Underchairman Josephson looked puzzled, so Willis decided to demonstrate.
“Here we have an editorial from the heathen Morgantown paper that says, more or less, that children should not be allowed to pray in school, if you can believe that! We need to respond to this, and Educate the Masses of the area, and let them know that God is everywhere, and our kids have the right to pray wherever they dang well please.”
Josephson had taken the clipping and was reading it. Willis grabbed it out of his hands. “Don’t sweat the details. That’s what it says.”
“My impression was that it was saying that it it’s against the Constitution for schools to set aside an official time for prayer.”
“That’s what I said it was about. Now I’ll help you through this first one.” He handed Josephson a pencil and a blank sheet of paper, and another sheet of paper with local media addresses written on it.
“I’ll dictate this one. You just write,” the Grandmaster decreed. “Dear Satan Worshipper: If you had ever read the Constitution of our great Christian nation, you’d know that it says that we are one nation under God, with Liberty and Justice for All. Our children have the right to pray wherever they want to pray. If you don’t like it, move to Russia. The word of Jesus is the truth, and should be taught in school instead of filthy sex…” He noticed that the Vice Underchairman had stopped writing.
“You got a problem?”
The hippie had finally stopped smiling. “Well, I just think that this letter might have a better chance of being published if it were less… confrontational.”
Willis glared at him. “Listen, rookie, we are confronting the enemies of Jesus, the hordes of the Devil. We aren’t going to get anywhere by tiptoeing around and saying ‘pretty please with sugar on top.'”
“Ah, but we should also remember II Timothy, chapter 2.”
“Is that the part about spilling your seed on the ground?”
“No. It says, ‘The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves.'”
Willis was impressed with the new Vice Underchairman’s ability to quote the Good Book at the drop of a hat. Maybe this kid had some potential after all, even if he did have things bass-ackwards.
“That’s all well and good, being the word of God and all, Amen. But the Scripture also says that we should smite our foes that trespass against us, and should always give 110%. An eye for an eye, you know.”
“I just think that we’d have a better chance of getting our message out if…”
“Look, you’re new. You don’t know anything yet.”
The hippie just turned his head sideways again, and kept smiling at Willis peacefully, which was beginning to get aggravating.
“Now it’s getting late. We’ll do the letters some other time, after Craig’s had some time to work with you, and teach you what’s what. For now, I think we should head into Morgantown and get to the clinic. Craig probably got mixed up about where to meet me. He’s probably already there.”
“Okay. You’re the Grandmaster.”
On the drive into Morgantown, Grandmaster Funk had assigned the new Vice Underchairman the task of drawing up a new protest sign to hold outside the clinic. Wouldn’t you know the danged hippie would write one that just said “Love.” This guy just was not working out.
There was no sign of Underchairman Craig Pilon at the clinic. This day was not starting well. Peeved, Willis insisted that the hippie Josephson change the slogan on his picket sign. The hippie did his annoying head-turning smile thing.
“What do you suggest?”
“Hmmm. Let’s see. How’s about ‘Murderers Burn in Hell,’ or ‘Damnation for Fornicators'”?
“I was thinking we could have something more positive, like ‘God Loves You.'”
It wasn’t like Willis to compromise, but the new guy was quite persuasive. They went back and forth on it for a while before agreeing to salvage the “Love” sign by changing it to “Love Jesus or Burn in Hell!” The hippie had only finished writing the word “Jesus” on the sign when Willis spotted an obviously pregnant sinner walking toward the front entrance of the clinic. Willis grabbed his sign and motioned for Josephson to follow him into picketing position.
Grandmaster Funk approached the woman at a gallop, his “Repent, Enimes of Jesus, for He shall return!” sign held menacingly over his head. Josephson followed, walking briskly. “Murderer! Killer! Fornicator! Slave of Satan!” screamed Willis at the woman, who seemed to be in her late teens, and was already in tears. Willis took up his testifying position, following a legally-mandated minimum of 20 or more feet behind the crying woman as she trudged towards the clinic entrance, his shrieks of “Forn-icator!” hounding her every step of the way.
Josephson brushed past the screaming Grandmaster and held his hand out to the woman. She eyed him uncertainly, unsure of what his intentions were. Finally, she took his hand in hers. Josephson slowly drew her to him, putting his arm around her shoulders and whispering into her ear. Willis didn’t know what to make of this strange behavior, and forgot to keep shouting. He stood staring dumbly as the woman and the new Vice Underchairman stood whispering, their arms around each others’ shoulders.
After almost a minute of this, Willis decided to go bust up the Love-In and find out what was what over there. But before he could get to the woman, she whispered “Thank You” to the hippie and hurried inside the clinic. Due to court order, Willis was not allowed within 50 feet of the entrance, so he had no choice but to sit there and watch as she walked inside.
Furious, he turned and stomped over to where the ever-smiling hippie Vice Underchairman stood.
“What in the name of Jesus H. Christ do you think you’re doing? We’re supposed to keep her out of that baby-killing pit of Satan!”
Josephson did his head-turning thing yet again and said calmly, “I was just showing compassion for my fellow servant.”
Willis had had enough. “Quit grinning like a moron and look me in the eye when I talk to you!”
He was about to light into the new guy but good, when he sensed someone approaching him from behind. He turned and saw that Underchairman Pilon had finally decided to show up.
“Mornin’, Grandmaster. Sorry I’m late. Who’s this long-hair you’re yellin’ at?”
Willis glared at the late-arriving Underchairman. “This is the no-good hippie sinner that you recruited. He’s been screwing up all morning!”
Pilon looked confused. “What are you talking about, Willis? I never seen this guy before.”
Grandmaster Funk was livid now. “This ain’t the new recruit you signed up at the feed store in Purgitsville?”
“Of course not! Do you think I’d invite some durn freak boy lookin’ like this to join us?”
Willis turned to glare at the hippie. “So just who are you, then, freak? Are you a heathen spy, sent to infiltrate and destroy our organization?”
The hippie looked deeply into his eyes, which made Willis uncomfortable. “I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfill. At least that was the original plan, when I heard about your group. But your organization has nothing to do with what I want, or what I believe. I need to go now.”
Underchairman Pilon had picked up the “Love Jesus” sign and brandished it menacingly. “You got that right, you lyin’ hippie! Git out of here, before I tan your hide and send you back where you belong!”
“Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake,” the hippie spy quoted.
This kid was good at quoting the Scripture, Willis had to admit. “You need to quit twistin’ the Good Book’s words for your own evil purposes. You wouldn’t know Jesus if he bit you in the ass! You are not welcome in the Fundamentalist Union of Christians anymore. So git, and don’t ever come back. We got no room for the likes of you in our group.”
“You’re right about that, Mr. Funk. Peace be with you.” The long-haired hippie turned and walked slowly away from them, not looking back.
Underchairman Pilon threw his sign to the ground angrily. “How could you think that I would’ve asked that freak boy to join us?”
“I don’t know. You were bragging on and on about the great success of the Spring Recruitment Drive, and then this guy shows up. What was I supposed to think?”
“Our foes are cagey and wily. We must be eternally vigilant to stymie them and get our way. You know that, Willis.”
College boy, always using 50 cent words when simple ones would do just as well. “We need better teamwork here, Underchairman, or we won’t know what’s what. We always need to know when one hand’s washing the other, or we’ll be like a chicken with its head cut off.”
“Truer words were never spoken, Grandmaster,” admitted Pilon. “But we shall have our day. It’s just like your sign says: ‘Repent, enemies of Jesus, for He shall return.’ Although you spelled enemies wrong.”
