Convent

by Sam Clemens

  “What—?” Cosmo started, but there was a tap on his shoulder.

  “Dudes,” came the voice.

  Cosmo turned and saw the unmistakable ponytail and pristine Patagonia water-resistant outer shell. Taylor was at the meeting.

  Cosmo wasn’t sure how their former manager had found out about the meeting, but there he was, devouring a slice of pepperoni and mushroom, running his mouth.

  “This is fucking insane,” he said, a bit too loud. “I mean, wow! Is this what you dudes quit REI for?”

  Cosmo looked over his shoulder and began to whisk Taylor toward the kitchen. “Come, my brother,” he said in a stilted manner. “Let us discuss the issues of the day.” Laird followed, and many eyes watched.

  Away from the crowd, they stood next to a large pizza oven and Cosmo squared to Taylor. “Who told you about this?” he asked.

  Taylor’s smile faded a touch. “I mean, I got a pamphlet.”

  Pamphlet. A second round had gone out when the meeting location changed. Laird printed 500 this time.

  Laird stepped forward. “Yeah but, those don’t have our info on them,” he said. “How’d you know it was us?”

  Taylor stared at him, confused. “I didn’t,” he said, looking back and forth for approval. “No, I didn’t realize that till I got here. I just—the pamphlet, man. I’m not religious or any of that, but, like, the way it was written…it was just really interesting, and I wanted to check it out.”

  Cosmo and Laird both exhaled deeply.

  “What?” Taylor said.

  “Good Christ,” Laird said, shaking his head. “I should recruit for the U.S. Army.”

  “Did you write those, dude?” Taylor asked. “No way.”

  Cosmo touched Taylor’s arm. “Okay. I know this looks weird. But, um, it makes a lot of sense when we explain it a little more.”

  “Weird?” Taylor looked at him. “This is fucking awesome!” He motioned to Cosmo’s clothes. “You’re like, a shaman or something. And look at this place!” Taylor pointed to the sinks, to the prep line, to the pizza ovens. “It’s like, half church, half pizzeria. Someone said you guys own this pizza joint, yeah?”

  Laird and Cosmo looked at each other. “Yeah,” Laird said. “We do.”

  “Amazing,” Taylor said with childlike wonder. “And the pizza’s tops. Do you guys make deep dish?”

  Twenty-Seven

  Taylor attended his second meeting on Wednesday. He arrived with the rest of the crowd and took a seat in the rear. From the kitchen—their new staging area before the meetings started—Laird peeked out and saw another familiar face next to him: Jordan. His bald head and bulky frame were hard to miss. It was strange enough to have Taylor show up, but now he’d spread the word to their quasi-criminal bookie/REI employee acquaintance? Unbelievable.

  Cosmo gave a rousing sermon on the shared universal consciousness and its inherent promise of everlasting life, and then pizza was served. Immediately when he left the makeshift stage—while his followers were still applauding—Laird grabbed Cosmo by the arm.

  “We gotta talk,” Laird said. “Beer?”

  “For sure, dude,” Cosmo agreed, recognizing the same urgency. The two men exited the kitchen door and walked across the parking lot to the Horse.

  They ordered two beers apiece and found the darkest corner booth.

  “Fuck,” Cosmo said.

  “Fuck,” Laird agreed.

  “Why does it make me feel so weird that those dudes were there?”

  “It’s like, worlds colliding or something,” Laird said.

  “I feel shaky,” Cosmo said. “Fraudulent.”

  “Don’t you start that shit again, now.”

  Cosmo took a drink. “I’m just saying. Having Taylor last time was weird enough. Then he came back and brought Jordan?”

  “Jordan, of all people.” Laird shook his head.

  “He’s just back there laughing, I’m sure. Taking notes. Pretty soon the whole REI store is gonna show up.”

  “Probably next Sunday, yes.”

  “Crap,” Cosmo said. “We can’t turn them away. What can we do?”

  Laird thought about it. Some modern pop song played. Absolute shit. “We’re not going to do anything,” he said. “We stay the course, like always. It’s the only way we can go.”

  Cosmo Hendricks slumped over his beer. “I’m not going to be comfortable with all that. All those people from my former life—they know the real me.”

  “Listen,” Laird said. “So yeah, we run a fake cult and they saw that tonight. Okay, fine.”

  “They’re going to blow it. They’re going to tell everyone we’re fakes.”

  “But,” Laird continued, “you know what else they saw? A pizza joint. The hottest one in town. And that we own it.”

  Cosmo sat up. “Yeah. That’s true.”

  “Taylor’s too dumb to do any damage,” Laird said. “Hell, he probably came back because he connected with the message.”

  “You can’t insult our followers.”

  “Yeah yeah, you know what I mean.” Laird waved his hands. “Point is, he’s not a threat. Jordan, I don’t know. He’s a tough son of a bitch, but he’s pragmatic, too. He’s not going to blow us up just for the sake of it.”

  Cosmo thought. “Sure. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “We can make him an ally if we have to,” Laird said. “He can be manipulated. And we have money.” Laird looked at the TV, which showed the highlights of the day’s soccer games. “Shit, if we’re lucky, he’ll start taking my bets again.”

  Twenty-Eight

  On Sunday, they were nervous. Cosmo and Laird sat at the Horse and slurped down Bud Light while they picked at their cuticles and fretted aloud.

  “We’re going to have to talk to them,” Cosmo said. “I can’t just bail out the back door as soon as the sermon’s over. It’s a bad look.”

  “You don’t even know if they’ll be there,” Laird said, but his eyes told a different story. The prospect of their old coworkers loomed large.

  When it was time, Roy let them in the back door like always, his flour-stained apron still on. They fidgeted in the kitchen and peeked out at the crowd. It took a minute, but Laird saw them: Taylor and Jordan, seated in the back once again.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  Roy asked, “Is everything alright, brother Laird?”

  “Yeah yeah,” Laird said, and waved him away. “Do me a favor, buddy. Warm up the crowd a little for us?”

  Roy tilted his head. “Warm…up?”

  “Yeah. Emcee a bit. Thank them for coming, introduce the emancipator.”

  The pizza cook stared, stone-faced.

  Laird sighed. “Or take the damn donations. I don’t know—we need a minute here.” He picked up one of the baseball caps that acted as an offering plate and handed it to him.

  “Brother,” Roy said, “with all due respect, we generally take the offering after—”

  “Fucking go,” Laird said, and shoved him through the swinging metal doors, out to the crowd.

  From inside the kitchen, they heard the muffled sounds of applause, followed by a few hesitant words from Roy.

  Laird approached Cosmo. He widened his feet into a problem solving stance. “Okay, they’re here. We need to approach this head-on.”

  Cosmo nodded, psyching himself up. “Fucking right,” he said. “Fuck them.”

  “No no, don’t fuck them. We need to remember there’s a chance they’re here earnestly. That they want to hear the message.”

  “Those guys?” Cosmo said. “Come on. They’re not dumb.”

  “Yes,” Laird said, “they are.” A tepid laugh from the crowd as Roy tried a joke of some sort. “Taylor’s like a golden retriever: enthusiastic and friendly but he’ll jump in a lake if you tell him. And Jordan—” Laird searched, “—well, I caught him jacking off by the cardboard baler one time, and how dumb do you have to be?”

  Cosmo stopped. “You did?”

/>   Laird nodded. “Made me promise not to tell anyone. Said he’d put me in the baler. Pretty sure the statute of limitations is up.” He peeked through the doors. “Anyway.”

  “Fuck,” Cosmo said, wiping his palms on his wrinkly linen shawl. “Okay, fine, fuck it.”

  “If they try any funny business—if they say shit to the group—I’ll call my goons to see to it they both get fucked up. Make sure they never set foot here again.” Laird said it with bite, trying to mimic the great hatchet men of old. He left out the part about how he only had contact with goons through Jordan, and thus the arrangement would be unhelpful to their needs. Whatever, though; the attitude was what mattered.

  “Right,” Cosmo said. “Hell yeah.”

  “Just do what you’ve been doing and it’ll all be fine.”

  Cosmo clenched his fists and charged through the door. The crowd erupted as if Joel Osteen himself had walked in. Still in the kitchen, Laird folded his arms and leaned on a stainless steel table. “It is written!” came Cosmo’s voice, muted by the doors but strong nonetheless. And then, the unmistakable response from the audience.

  “And so it shall come to pass!”

  The sermon was strong. Cosmo quoted often from The Book of Cosmography: The Way Everything Is (And Why It Is That Way), and the crowd ate it up. He read a passage explaining that the shared celestial consciousness requires nothing but commitment—not food, not water, definitely not money. That man cannot live on bread alone, but he can exist on faith. It killed. People dumped their wallets into the hats.

  Afterward, pizzas were cut and Laird declared there would be a very special announcement at the next meeting, so make sure to be there. Announcing the announcement, next level P.R. With the necessities finished and the fellowship on, Laird watched Cosmo walk directly toward Taylor and Jordan.

  He hurried to his friend’s side and joined the conversation.

  “It’s true,” Cosmo was saying. “I’ve had these inclinations for some time.”

  Taylor and Jordan nodded along, hands in their pockets.

  “I need to be honest with you,” Jordan, the brute, told Cosmo, “I didn’t see these qualities in you before. Maybe I was biased, or just blind.”

  “No, my friend,” Cosmo replied, “it was I who was blind. Blind to my true calling. And blind to the ways of the cosmos. But this.” He pointed to the manuscript, which had begun to get ragged at the edges. “This is where I should’ve been all along.”

  “Really good shit tonight,” Taylor butted in. “So awesome, man. Really.”

  “Indeed,” Jordan said. “You’ve given me a lot to consider.”

  Laird leaned in to make sure he was hearing correctly; this strong-armed bookie speaking in these elegant, brandy-snifting tones? What universe was this?

  “Consider it as you will,” Cosmo said. “We’re working on big things here. It would be an honor to have you along for the ride.”

  Jordan nodded. “Dope ass pizza, too.”

  When they left, Cosmo and Laird were left gazing across the fellowship. Laird stared at the door they’d exited.

  “You think that was a put-on?” he asked. “I mean, it had to be.”

  Cosmo shook his head. “I think he bought it. Let’s get out of here.”

  It was shots at the Horse that night. Cosmo and Laird clinked their little glasses together and dumped the whiskey down their gullets.

  “Fuck Jameson,” Laird said, scrunching his face as if he’d ingested dog piss. “I don’t get what the big deal is.”

  “Marketing’s finest work,” Cosmo said. “How about something mixed next time? Something all sugary. Lemon drop, maybe.”

  “Jameson or gut rot, these are our options.” Laird shook his head. “When this pizza place is off the ground, we should open a distillery.”

  Cosmo fought off a second wave of whiskey face and shrugged his shoulders. “Not sure how you’re looking at the numbers, dude, but I think the pizza place is off the ground.”

  Before Laird could respond, a brunette number approached the table and asked, “Get you boys anything?”

  “Two lemon drops,” Laird said. “They’re for our, um, children.” He watched her leave and said, “I didn’t think they had waitresses at night. It’s always been bar service.”

  Cosmo shrugged. “Who knows. How about Jordan tonight, man?”

  “Fuck,” Laird agreed. “I figured Taylor’d jump right in, but I gotta be honest, I didn’t see Jordan joining the congregation.”

  “He hasn’t yet.”

  “Of course.”

  “But man. I’m seeing this shit more clearly, I think. People want religion, on some level. They say they don’t but they do.”

  Laird thought about it. “Go on,” he said.

  “Or maybe not religion per se, but something.” Cosmo spread his hands wide on the table. “Sorry if this sounds all woo-woo, dude, but really, it’s like all of us have some spiritual…yearning. And sometimes I guess it takes, like, an alternative spirituality to bring that out.”

  “Alternative,” Laird pondered. “Like a pseudo-worship of the stars, founded by two idiots and practiced after hours in a pizza place? Yeah, it checks out.”

  “Exactly,” Cosmo said. “It started as a joke, but—”

  The waitress came back with two lemon drop shots on a tray. She placed them in front of the men, and nodded. “It is written,” she said, and walked away.

  Cosmo and Laird looked after her.

  “Yeah,” Cosmo said finally. “Brianna, I think. She usually sits on the left side.”

  “Fucking hell,” Laird said.

  The boys slid the syrupy shots down their throats. The music of the Horse—some jam band from the eighties—came thinly through the tinny, ceiling-mounted speakers.

  “More like it,” Cosmo said after he’d swallowed. “Listen dude, all I’m saying is maybe we’ve inadvertently done something here. Maybe Jordan came to the meeting skeptical, but actually left with something useful.” He shook his head. “Or maybe I’m trying to justify all this bizarre shit going on.”

  “Maybe,” Laird said. “Maybe to both. Or maybe he is just an idiot.”

  “Maybe he’s afraid you’ll call him out for his backroom beat-off session.”

  They laughed and waved the woman down for another round.

  Twenty-Nine

  Laird decided to stop trying to explain it. He’d promised Cosmo adventure when they’d headed west, and were they or were they not in the midst of one? Who cared if the entire world had gone slightly insane and his best friend was now the head of a rapidly growing cult? He figured he’d take the ride and see where it led. There was no reason to fret when everything was going so well, really. They had money, freedom, and people liked them. When was the last time Laird could say that? And why should he try to explain it all away? The lord works in mysterious ways.

  Cosmo asked him to print the book. They wanted a personal copy for every member of the congregation—both men had lost count, but it was well past fifty; more people jammed themselves in the pizza joint every Wednesday and Sunday. Laird had the idea to make the books small and leather-bound, like those little New Testaments you get from odd older gentlemen roaming college campuses. It would be perfect. He found an online printer that could accommodate the project, ordered proofs, and paid with the corporate Discover.

  The money laundering was going well. All donations went directly into the Pizza by Cosmo’s coffers, and mixed with the legit funds. Laird kept a spreadsheet to know how much of it was church dough. He honestly didn’t know if they were even doing anything illegal; this was just an easy way to avoid filing official documents for the religion and keep the government out of their business. At that point, they probably had enough allies in the city to go legit as a religion without much fuss, but it was another hassle to deal with. Perhaps another day.

  Pizza-wise, they were gangbusters. The shop was consistently full and they were able to charge significantly more than was reaso
nable for such fare, as the local college students seemed eager to escalate the balances on their parents’ credit cards as fast as possible. The mondo pie was a hit with the fraternities. If business continued as it was, they would be able to begin paying out to their investors sooner than expected, and this made Cosmo happy.

  On Tuesday, Laird was scratching his balls on the couch when Cosmo texted him for a meeting.

  Horse? the message read.

  Sure, 30 mins, Laird wrote back.

  Laird arrived first. He ordered two burgers and two beers and paid with the corporate Discover, then found their favorite booth and waited. The Horse was quieter during the daytime, but the lighting was the same.

  Cosmo arrived with Sadie.

  “Hey,” she said to Laird, setting her keys on the table. Her face was locked in a chipmunky smile.

  “Hello,” Laird said. “How is your afternoon?”

  “Great!” Sadie said. She sat down. “Cosmo and I went to the zoo.”

  Laird looked at her. “That’s great,” he said, and waited for her to leave. She didn’t. “Can I help you?” Laird said finally.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I—where’s Cosmo?”

  “At the bar.” Sadie pulled her phone out of her purse.

  Laird tried to look around her. “I already ordered for us. I’m gonna go tell him.”

  “No,” she said, “he’s getting me a saison.”

  His eyebrows went higher. “Saison?”

  Saide nodded.

  “Hey Sadie, I don’t mean to be rude, but I think Coz and I have a meeting.”

  “Yeah,” she shrugged. “I know.”

  The emancipator returned then, carrying a bright orange unfiltered beer. “Here you go, Sades,” he said.

  “Sades,” Laird repeated.

  Cosmo sat across from him. “Dude—”

  “You went to the zoo,” Laird said.

  “Dude—”