“You can’t go in there‒”
Nate ignored Mayor Bloom’s secretary, Lydia. She went to his church. She should understand‒if she even knew. The half-door slammed against the counter as he stomped toward the mayor’s closed office.
“Nate, stop!” Lydia jumped from her chair.
Nate shoved open the mayor’s door. Eight men seated around an oval table stared in surprise. Worn brown carpet muffled Nate’s footsteps as he stomped toward the table. His lips were pinched; his eyes narrowed. The pain from being tasered lingered in his muscles. “Of all the low-minded, devil-driven things to do.” The words hissed through clenched teeth.
Eight men pushed their backs against the hard chairs.
“I never expected this of you, of all people,” Nate continued
Mayor Carson Bloom had run on an independent ticket, beating the incumbent Democrat, Jeff Arnez, and Republican opponent, Nick George. The sincerity of Bloom’s platform: keep budgets under control, focus on critical services, and strive for community integrity won him the vote.
Lydia stood in the open doorway. “Sir?”
At the far end of the table, Mayor Bloom rose. “Do you know you just interrupted a very important meeting?”
“You padlocked my church!”
The mayor worked his jaw.
The beam of light coming from the second-floor window wavered, creating patterns on the table that had not been there before. A crow sat on the ledge. Feathers shimmered blue, almost iridescent, in the afternoon sun. The bird stood with its pointed talons gripping the chipped cement, its head cocked toward the room.
“Someone get that bird away from the window.” The mayor’s voice warbled, like the strangled call of a drowning man.
Bill Stafford, the chief of police, tapped on the glass. “Go on there. Move off.” The bird stared.
Lydia reappeared, clutching paper and tape. She and the chief covered the lower portion of the window. The stream of light broke at the next window. The crow had moved. As easy as that, the bird out-witted the smartest people in town.
For once, Nate cheered the bird. “What about my church?”
“Young man‒”
“Name’s Nate Bishop. I’m a member of the First Street Church. I was told the order to chain our doors came from you.”
The police chief placed his forearms on the table. “My officers locked your building and half a dozen others today.” He kept his steel-gray eyes fixed on Nate.
Nate stared back, his face hard with anger.
“My job,” the chief continued, “is to uphold the law. Your church had time to pay the tax. Your pastor refused, and the church was closed. Simple cause and effect. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to you or anyone else in the community.”
Nate bristled. Did they think he was a fool? “What law allows you to close churches? This is America, last I knew.”
“We’re not targeting churches, son, and we didn’t pick yours at random.” The chief leaned back in his chair and crossed hairy arms over his abdomen.
“The state law was just passed,” the mayor said. “The Salvation Law. It’ll get Logan out of debt, help us fix our roads, purchase much needed emergency equipment, beef up our teacher’s pay‒”
“The Salvation Law,” Nate spit the words out.
“Mr. Bishop,” the mayor said, “if you will schedule a meeting with my secretary, I’ll be glad to talk to you about this. Right now, I am in the middle of a very important meeting.”
Nate stared around the room. Eight people and one bird stared back. No one seemed to harbor guilt over closing his church. Not one face showed embarrassment, discomfort, or even sympathy for his plight. Eight faces: all anxious for him to leave, all wanting to get back to whatever business was more important than his church; one bird at the window, momentarily forgotten.
“Either leave, or you’ll force me to call upon the chief, here, to do his duty.” Mayor Bloom remained standing, the large oak table and seven men formed a secure barrier against any advance Nate might make. A king with his knights.
Not bothering to close the door behind him, Nate bypassed the elevator and ran down the steps. Someone had to know what was going on, and he knew just whom to ask.
~*~
“Put his iced tea in a plastic cup, Betsy,” Chet yelled across the room. “Don’t give him real glass; the mood he’s in, he’ll break it.”
“Hush!” Betsy poked her head into the living room. “You’ll wake Chip from his nap.”
Chet grinned. “As if I could. That kid sleeps like the dead. Nothing wakes him until he’s ready to get up.”
Nate mumbled a response and headed to the sofa while Chet hobbled toward the recliner. The Ross’s two storied 1950’s home had become Nate’s haven. He always ended up in their living room when he felt out-of-sorts or just needed company. Now the late afternoon sun slanted through the beveled windows, sending rainbows across the hardwood floor. He and Chet had been best buds since elementary school, and now Betsy fit right in.
“See you got your walking cast.” Nate needed time to breathe, to allow his churning emotions to congeal into something recognizable. Maybe then he could find a pattern in the mayhem that gripped his town.
Ice rattled in the kitchen. Soon Betsy handed each man a large cup filled with iced tea.
Nate placed the cup to his forehead; the cool plastic soothed his hot skin. As Betsy headed back to the kitchen, Nate called to her. “Hey, Bets, you can stay. In fact, I would like you to hear this.”
She settled on the floor beside Chet’s recliner.
Chet turned to Nate. “So, OK, Joe Sunshine, what’s wrong?”
A crooked smile crept onto Nate’s face. “Been a long time since we’ve used that expression.”
“Secret code or something?” Betsy asked.
“No, just a joke between Nate and me. Nate had a cousin named Joe who was a royal pain in the neck. The kid was a real downer.” Chet turned to Nate. “What ever happened to him, anyway?”
Nate shrugged his shoulders. “Last I knew, he was attending graduate school at some Ivy-League college.” Nate squeezed his eyes tight then opened them and looked at his friends. “Pastor Clark’s been arrested.”
“What?” Betsy gripped Chet’s thigh.
“When?” Chet asked.
“An hour ago. Do you know anything about a new law that taxes churches?”
Betsy twisted around to look at Chet. Her calm face darkened. Obviously, Betsy knew something Nate didn’t. He steeled himself for the bad news, but what could be worse than having their pastor arrested and their church taken from them?
Chet’s words came slow. “Haven’t you read the paper?”
“I never read the paper. You know that.”
“Maybe you should.” Chet settled the cup between his knees. “We talked about this a couple months ago, remember? The bill to include churches in property tax? It was in the Legislative Update.”
“Yeah, yeah. Sounds familiar.”
“At the close of the session last month, the bill passed. Come on, buddy. You know this.”
Betsy frowned. “The pastor talked about it. He said to trust God for the solution.”
Had Pastor Clark mentioned it? Nate remembered rumblings, but honestly, he must not have paid enough attention to the announcements. That’s why he came to Chet. If anyone had an analytical brain, it was Chet. The man was a mental trap for information.
Nate should trust God, but under the circumstances, it seemed God might need human help to solve a human problem. “Our church was just locked by the police who then dragged our pastor away in handcuffs. I was there. I saw it happen.”
“Talk to me, bro.” The recliner squeaked as Chet leaned forward.
Nate wet his lips, wondering where to start. “Mr. Evans sent me to town.” He described the crowd, the chained doors. He told them about Pastor Clark being taken away in a cruiser. “I tried to find out what was going on, and got myself tasered in the process.�
��
“You were tasered?” Betsy’s mouth hung open. “You poor thing!”
Nate pulled fingers through his hair. Chet and Betsy were missing the point. “I went across the street to the mayor’s office, and all I found out was that the church didn’t pay some sort of tax. Can they do that, just lock the church?” Even though Chet was the analytical one of the group, Nate was the practical one, the problem-solver, the one with the solutions. Now here he was, sitting on his friend’s sofa, drooling all over himself in ineptness.
“I’m surprised the mayor had time to see you,” Betsy said.
“I crashed his meeting.”
Chet gripped the back of his neck “The best I know, at the beginning of this year’s session, the legislature made a promise to fix the state’s economic issues. The only place they could find money was the untaxed real estate of non-profits.”
“Including churches?”
“Including churches. So the Senate, then the House, passed the bill. Each municipality is allowed to decide whether to enact the tax on the churches. The governor already approved the bill. The Logan City Council voted to enact the law. Do you remember, Bets, the amount of money the new tax is supposed to bring in?”
“I read it in the paper but I don’t remember. It was huge. Apparently, twelve percent of Logan’s property is owned by nonprofits.”
“I can’t believe this.” Nate rose to his feet and paced the length of the living room. “So why lock the church?”
“The article said that if the tax wasn’t paid or good-will established, the property would be secured.”
Nate bent and rubbed the sore spot on his thigh from the taser. He might as well be living in some third-world country. Logan’s administration now controlled his church, and it had happened right under his nose. He never read the newspaper, but there were plenty of people who did. Why didn’t they sound the alarm, rally the troops? He would have helped to organize a good old-fashioned picket at the State House, held television interviews‒something. He sank back onto the couch.
“Nate, it’s been in the news for months,” Chet said. “No one took it seriously; at least, not at first.”
“We didn’t think the bill would pass,” Betsy added.
No right-minded person would tax a church. But if Chet was right, then Nate should have known, and he should have done something to stop it. He had allowed his complacency to lull him into non-action. “So what now? We meet in the yard or under the picnic shelter until this mess gets straightened out?” Nate stood again, his muscles slow to respond to movement. “Thanks for the tea, Betsy. I need time to think all this though.” He placed his cup in the kitchen sink and let himself out the back door.
Crows peppered the grass. Hopping on spindly legs, the birds moved as he passed, following him to his car. Once inside, and with the doors locked, Nate heaved a sigh.
If he was a lesser man, he would take up O’Reilly’s habits.
7
Friday, May 24
The week had dragged, but finally Friday arrived. Arriving home from work, Ruth tossed her purse on the couch and plopped into an over-stuffed chair. After her mishap last weekend, Ruth decided not to do any wandering around town this Saturday, leaving the next two days free. Used to being alone, she didn’t mind the lack of companionship. Raised by a mother who was always at work, leaving her to occupy herself alone in the small apartment, she felt awkward around people.
She rubbed her arms, working out the tightness. Mr. Charlie’s strange behavior bothered her enough that she hadn’t told him about her attack last weekend. He had been edgy since the church got locked. Today, he actually stopped talking in the middle of a sentence. He looked toward the sky, his jaw slack, a piece of half-chewed apple still on his tongue. Where did he go when he wandered off like that?
Sunbeams spilled through the living room window. She stretched out her legs and played with the light, creating dancing shadows across the beige walls. A thin smile pulled at her lips. She loved her apartment. It had been a derelict-space the first time she saw it. The landlord put enough money into the first floor of the old house to pass safety codes, and that was it. The second level remained untouched. But she felt lucky to get anything, based on her meager wage. With a lot of hard work and creativity, the place now looked and felt homey.
If only her mother could see the apartment. Neither one of them could afford a phone‒she should look into one of those free emergency phones over the weekend‒but her boss allowed her to use the work phone and she called her mom at the Ackerman house during their lunch once a month. It had been two weeks since they’d last talked, but then, even when she lived with her mother, they seldom chatted. Too tired, her mom always said when Ruth tried to describe the day’s events.
Ruth dangled her legs in the light, thinking about the last time they had spoken to each other. “Mom, you should see my coffee table. Remember I told you I wanted to build one? Well, I found a couple of crates that were perfect to hold the cabinet door I’ve been saving.”
“Do you really need a coffee table?” A drawn-out sigh had followed.
The stinging comment had brought to mind the day she had rescued an old wooden chair from the trash. It became her eleventh-grade art project. After being rebuilt and covered with decoupage, her teacher, Mrs. Grant, declared the chair the best in the class. One Sunday, while her mom was at her second job at the nursing home, Ruth had re-arranged the living room furniture and added the wooden chair. She danced around the room, readjusting a pillow, shifting the end table, as she waited for her mom to get home. When her mom finally arrived, the woman gazed from one side of the room to the other. Ruth then returned the room to how it was and carried the chair to her bedroom.
Ruth had squeezed her eyelids closed. “The table cost me less than five dollars and it looks nice. It really brightens the room.” She paused, unsure why she felt a need to justify the expense to her mom. “I can use it when company comes. You know, to set snacks on or something.”
“Do you have guests?” Her mom’s voice brightened.
“Not yet…but I will.” On top of the criticism about how she spent her money, Ruth couldn’t bear the lecture she knew was coming: her lack of social life. How she needed to make friends; how it wasn’t healthy to be alone so much. Ruth ended the call ten minutes early. She wondered, given different circumstances, if her mom would be the social darling that she wanted her daughter to be. Ruth couldn’t think of a single person her mom called friend.
Now, as the fading beam of evening sun lay across the butter-yellow coffee table, Ruth’s thoughts wandered to her dad. His features had grown fuzzy over the years, but his memory still enveloped her in love. She hugged a pillow to her chest. Life had changed so much when he’d died. She’d been eight.
Her mom had to get a job. They no longer enjoyed the Friday night trips to the movies. There had been no money for new dresses or haircuts at the corner beauty shop. Rice and beans became staples: poor people food. But while others flocked to the food banks and sought outside help, her mom never did. What Mom couldn’t provide, they didn’t need.
No one had earned Ruth’s respect more than her mother, but all those hours as her mom worked while she stayed home alone came with a cost: their relationship. In spite of the lack of closeness, she loved her mom and feared disappointing her. Ruth had her own life now, and she had her own dreams.
But there was one thing her mother must never know. Ruth touched the chain around her neck. Its revelation would unravel the thread of any relationship they maintained.
Ruth wandered from the living room, through the dining room that was now converted to a bedroom, and into the house’s original kitchen. Standing at the old porcelain sink, she spread peanut butter on a slice of bread and poured herself a glass of unsweetened iced tea. Sugar cost money, and she rationed it by the grain. With her last raise, she had enough cash to allow a few extras, but she chose to live without sugar. Instead she bought paint and fabric and thread
, food for her creativity.
A noise came from the living room. She stiffened. No one should be in the house with her. The sound changed from nails-on-a-chalkboard to a soft reverberation. Her sandwich lay on the counter, forgotten.
Had she locked the front door when she’d gotten home, a lesson she had learned in Atlanta and rarely forgot? But her mind had been on Mr. Charlie. She looked for a weapon and grabbed the broom. The living room now lay in silence, whoever had entered had taken pause somewhere. She tiptoed across the kitchen.
From the kitchen doorway she could see straight through the bedroom and into the living room. The three pillows on the couch remained propped as she’d left them. None of the furniture appeared out of place. No dusty footprints marred the wood floor. The front door was closed, but did that mean anything?
Ruth sneaked through the kitchen into the bedroom, holding the broom in front of her with both hands. Her heart pounded. Stay calm…stay calm…
Thoughts of the man in the car leaped into her mind. Had he found where she lived, and now sought revenge for her victory?
The bedroom held only a double bed pushed against the outside wall. She examined the small space. The quilt on her bed hung to the floor. Hadn’t the last noise sounded as though someone slid under the bed? She licked dry lips, gaze glued to the edge of the quilt. She should turn and run out the kitchen door. Have a neighbor call the police. Instead she inched toward the bed, one slow step at a time. With one swift motion, she jerked the cover off the bed and jumped back, broom at the ready.
Beads of sweat coated her hairline. After several seconds of heart-pounding nothingness, she looked under the bed. Dust bunnies and empty boxes remained undisturbed.
Wanting to give the intruder time to escape out the front door, she walked with heavy footsteps across the bedroom. She entered the living room. No one darted from behind the couch. The thin beam of light from the window now flowed over the chair, as it should. Everything seemed normal, and yet her gut screamed otherwise.
The hair on her arms stood straight—she wasn’t alone!
Light of Logan Page 5