Peachie was lost; and the other one, the one I had offended, the widow, should never be mine. I prayed for a clear head.
“It’s probably Elwyn’s fault,” my grandmother said. “He’s too serious for these modern girls, that’s what.”
“He tries to be a good Christian,” my mother said.
“I guess you can’t blame him,” said my grandmother. “But he could at least give me a hug. He played so nice today.”
“Yes, he did,” my mother said.
“Lord, I’m proud of that boy,” my grandmother said. “He’s going to do great things for the Lord. He just has to wait upon the Lord.”
“He was always my best student,” Sister McGowan said.
“The actual city of Armageddon,” said my father, “is somewhere in the Middle East, isn’t it?”
Fasting left me numb, light-headed, closer to God. Fasting was good. But as I heard the sound of forks clinking against the good china again, my stomach growled. I sipped from my glass of water, which was the only thing the Faithful were allowed to consume on a fast.
Lord, give me strength, I prayed, to fast and to forgive. Give me a clean heart, Lord, that I may follow Thee.
Then I headed out to the dining room and greeted Sister McGowan and gave my grandmother her hug.
At my high school, I did not speak to my acquaintances except to witness to them.
Admittedly, a large number of students fled at the sight of me. Others hungrily accepted the tracts and Bibles I handed out. There was always a crowd at the prayer meetings I held in the back of the cafeteria during lunch. Many came to laugh and deride, but others came to bow their heads and utter their first timid words to their Creator. More than a few shed tears of repentance.
I skipped classes in order to confront those of my fellows who were themselves skipping to smoke marijuana cigarettes and vent their carnality in the dark dressing chambers between the band room and the auditorium. These last were not happy to see me, but as God was on my side, they came to respect, both spiritually and literally, the power of the light I brought. None could escape the Faithful servant of God.
I was on the battlefield for my Lord.
In fact, I increased my evangelistic efforts so much so that I found myself barely paying attention at school.
I was busy saving lost souls—John Feinstein, Eldridge Pomerantz, Marco Japonte, Marigold Hendricks, the bubbly Anderson twins, Tina and Sabina, and many more to whom I was spiritual leader. What did I care about trigonometry?
I ended up sitting on a backless chair in the principal’s office.
Mr. Byrd was a short man with a voice that thundered. His office was dominated by a large wooden desk overflowing with pink and yellow sheets of paper. In a picture frame nailed to the wall directly behind the desk there was a color photograph of Mr. Byrd and a plump woman wearing a pair of riding pants and riding boots. The woman stood a few inches taller than Mr. Byrd, who had his arm around her waist.
“Just stop it,” Mr. Byrd said. He sat on the edge of his desk, an unlit pipe hanging out of his mouth. “Stop it.”
“I am a child of God,” I said.
“Amen. I’m a deacon. A Baptist,” he said. “But I’ll expel you if you don’t stop it.”
“Then you understand, Brother Deacon. I’ve got to do my Father’s business.”
“Just stop it.” The short man’s heavy voice seemed to shake the very walls.
“No, sir.”
“Would you like me to call your parents?”
“They support my evangelism.”
He nodded. “That’s right. You’re all fanatics. That whole Church of the Blessed Christ Walking Whatever-you-call-its.”
I was prepared for such as he, and I said, “The Faithful is what we are called. Feel free to make fun of us because we don’t drink, don’t smoke, and our women don’t wear pants.”
“Pants?” Cupping the bowl of his pipe in his hand, Mr. Byrd glanced back at the picture on the wall of him and the woman in the riding pants. He eyed me. “What’s wrong with pants?”
“Pants,” I informed, “Deuteronomy 22:5. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man.”
“And you don’t danceth or weareth jewelry either?” he mocked. “We do not.”
“King David danced. He wore a good deal of jewelry too,” he offered.
“David was before Christ’s time. That’s Old Testament.”
“Deuteronomy is Old Testament too.”
“Well, Christ didn’t do away with everything under the old law.”
“Not those things which pleaseth your church, at any rate,” said Mr. Byrd slyly as he hopped off the desk. He raised the volume of his already powerful voice. “They didn’t even have pants in the Old Testament!”
I was undaunted, but my time was too precious to argue with such as Mr. Byrd. I should be out serving the Lord saving lost souls. I said to him, just as slyly, “I guess Baptists can do just about any old thing they please.”
Mr. Byrd let out a dry laugh, pointing at me. “Oh, no. Don’t mistake us for you.” As Mr. Byrd cackled, the unlit pipe in his mouth whistled. He lifted a folder filled with pink sheets of paper from his desk and read from it in an officious and mocking tone: “Elwyn James Parker, six unexcused absences, seven tardies, failing English, failing health, a warning in trigonometry—do you plan to go to college, young man?”
“Bible College.”
The grin left Mr. Byrd’s face and he sighed, as though I, a child of the King, were the lost cause. “Do you plan to graduate high school?”
“Of course.”
“Then stop it. Get back to being the student you were.”
“God’s will.”
Mr. Byrd closed the folder. He tried a friendlier approach—“I don’t want to expel you, Elwyn. You’re not the worst kid we have here”—but I wasn’t buying it.
At last, he put the folder down and signaled with his hand for me to leave. I stood.
“Just stop it.”
I shook my head. “No, sir.”
“The Bible is a book about life here on earth, Elwyn. For your own sake, start living life.”
“I am living, Deacon. But perhaps you’d rather I smoked a marijuana cigarette or got someone’s daughter in trouble.”
“You wouldn’t know where to start,” he fired back drily.
I opened the door and stepped out of his office. I shouted, “Praise the Lord!”
Mr. Byrd’s door slammed behind me.
I was gracious with Barry McGowan. I even shook his hand in brotherhood during one of his trips home from Bible College to preach a sermon on humility. Barry proved a charismatic speaker. That and the two songs he performed evoked thunderclaps of “Amen” and “Yes, Lord” from the congregation in spite of what he had done. I wished Barry well and meant it.
I also wished Peachie well, now that her condition had become obvious and the congregation was reacting to her as it always did to those who had strayed. Pastor had removed her from the choir and relieved her of her duties as minister of music. She no longer led prayers at youth hour, though she continued to give a cautionary testimony that moved all of us teenagers to avoid lasciviousness. Like me, Peachie was determined to regain that special relationship with God that she had lost.