by C.G. Banks
*
Fifteen minutes later he looked a changed man, his hair neatly parted to the side, his shoes polished, his slacks and matching jacket completing the transformation. He hadn’t worn a suit (this suit, in fact) since Henry Bailing died almost three years ago, but it hadn’t gone too far out of style and he was fastidious about his weight. Better yet, the slight out-of-touchness of the suit lent a certain air of the zealot. After all it was edging up over 90 out there and only a die-hard would choose today for a brochure run in the name of the Lord. He’d quickly shaved and laced the tie, snatched up the paperwork and…froze by the front door.
This was it. This was where the rubber met the road, where the men get separated from the boys. Something whispered in his head that walking through the door was final; there would be no turning back. All the spying and lustful jerking off, all the imaginings and wondering. All that would fly by the wayside as soon as he put one foot on the stoop. The Machine was waiting and now he had the Key. He looked down at his clenched fist, at the brochures. He breathed out, tried to relax, didn’t want the literature crumpled and mean-looking when he left it on people’s doors, in the mailboxes. He figured he’d have to make at least one block to give it a semblance of legitimacy. Maybe more if people started to notice.
From his corner to her house was seven houses on her side. There were six on the opposite side owing to an empty lot one down from the corner. Far down that way (almost to the STOP sign at the corner of Stickler and Samane) he could see a man on a riding lawnmower. Other than that the street was empty. He paused suddenly at the end of his driveway, realizing that he didn’t even know what was printed on the flyers. He quickly pulled one free of the rubber band and opened it, hit it briefly with his eyes. Yep, just as he’d thought. A little information, a warm word-hug, and an invitation. Odds were these brochures had been handed out for the church, but where his had come from…well, the devil was in the details.
He decided to work her side of the street exclusively. He prided himself on being perceptive and knew as he worked along whatever answer he needed would come to him. They always did. But there was the question of the mailboxes. That would seem the easiest place to leave the flyers but it didn’t get him any closer to that fucking note. So…he’d go door-to-door, at least up to her house. He’d check the coast at that point and if it was clear, he’d leave the rest in mailboxes, make the corner back toward the unfinished section of the neighborhood and circle back to his house by way of Achin Street. If things went right it shouldn’t take him any more than thirty, forty minutes.
Then, hopefully, he could go on with step two. Everything really hinged on the contents of whatever that guy had left. Get your ass moving, a sinister voice warned. While you’re out here tugging your dick making decisions, that bitch could come driving up any minute, and this plan is straight down the shitter. He involuntarily flinched at the power of the voice, and dropped the brochures down to his side. There were times when he did feel like a puppet (times like now) and it completely threw him off. He shook his head to take away the specter. “Free will, baby,” he whispered to himself. “I am not led, I am not led.” The sentence had become a private mantra to him lately. Most times it soothed his nerves; today it just got his ass moving.
He crossed the street, jumped the ditch, and walked up the drive to the first house. While slipping out the brochure the front door peeled back and Tomas found himself face-to-face with an elderly woman, seemingly fresh out of bed. She was smoking and eyeing him suspiciously, squinting through the stink rifling out past her. He smiled and transformed seamlessly into the Salesman, spent the next fifteen minutes (fifteen goddamn minutes!) meeting and getting to know her, explaining the wonders of the Afterlife and its attendant church on the brochure. After a quick handshake and a lot of nodding of heads he was finally able to extract himself from the ancient’s grasp. He reeled down her walkway to the street with a dizziness he hadn’t expected. At this rate I’ll be roasting in the fucking sun all day! he thought. But it couldn’t be helped.
At the next two houses he simply left the brochures pushed into a crease between the jamb and the door. At the fourth house he was rather rudely asked to “peddle his religion” elsewhere. At number five a dog raised nine shades of hell from the other side of the door but number six was quiet and empty as a tomb. The target’s house, the one right next door, had an Acadian-style front porch from one end of the house to the carport. A large maple stood in front and shadowed most of the front from the street. That was good. He simply left the door at six and moved onto the porch at the target, shielded from the street by the maple. He made a left at the carport and slid over to the screen door.
And there it was! The dream became so real he felt a bloated wave of deja-vu wash over him, making his head spin. Sending just a little tendril of doubt into his system on the actuality of free will. But he shook it off, cracked the screen door and ripped the note from its crack. He didn’t even look at it, just shoved it into the pocket of his slacks. Then he started to turn away, remembered he hadn’t left a brochure.
Except that word didn’t seem quite right, here.
Here it was more like a calling card. He pulled one of the brochures free of the rubber band and slipped it into the space where the message had been. Then he moved quickly to the next house.