Decision Point (ARC)

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

“Brother Habit, we don’t know. Would you ask God and tell

  us what he says?”

  Whereupon Father roared out, “God in heaven! Thou

  knowest our question! Tell us thine answer! We thy children ask

  thee for bread, O Father! Do not give us a stone!”

  Then he gripped the pulpit—the dictionary stand, which

  trembled under his hands—and continued glaring upward. Zeck

  knew that when Father looked upward like that, he did not see

  the roof beams or the ceiling above them. He was staring into

  heaven, demanding that all those hurrying angels get out of his

  way so his gaze could penetrate all the way to God and demand

  his attention, because it was his right. Ask and it shall be given,

  God had promised. Knock and it shall be opened! Well, Habit

  Morgan was knocking and asking, and it was time for God to

  open and give. God could not break his word—at least not when

  Habit Morgan was holding him to it.

  But God took his own sweet time. Which was why Zeck was

  sitting there on the front row, with Mother and his three younger

  siblings beside him, all perched on chairs so wobbly they showed

  the slightest trace of movement. The other children were young,

  and their fidgets were forgiven. Zeck was determined to be pure,

  and his wobbly chair might have been made of stone for all the

  movement it made.

  When Father stared into heaven this long it was a test. Maybe

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  it was a test given by God, or maybe Father had already received

  his answer—received it perhaps the night before when he was

  writing this sermon—and so the test was from him. Either way,

  Zeck would pass this test as he passed all the tests laid before

  him.

  The long minutes dragged. One itch would fade, only to be

  replaced by another. Father still stared into heaven. Zeck ignored

  the sweat trickling down his neck.

  And behind him, somewhere among the seventy-three

  members of the congregation who had come today (Zeck hadn’t

  counted them, he had only glanced, but as usual he immediately

  knew how many there were), someone shifted in his seat.

  Someone coughed. It was the moment Father—or God—had

  been waiting for.

  Father’s voice was only a whisper, but it carried through the

  room. “How can I hear the voice of the Holy Spirit when I am

  surrounded by impurity?”

  Zeck thought of quoting back to him his own sermon, given

  two years ago, when Zeck was only just barely four. “Do you

  think that God cannot make his voice heard no matter what other

  noise is going on around you? If you are pure, then all the tumult

  of the world is silence compared to the voice of God.” But Zeck

  knew that to quote this now would bring down the rod of

  chastisement. Father was not really asking a question. He was

  pointing out what everyone knew: That in all this congregation,

  only Habit Morgan was really, truly pure. That’s why God’s

  answers came to him, and only to him.

  “Saint Nick is a mask!” roared Father. “Saint Nick is the false

  beard and the false laugh worn by the drunken servants of the

  God of frivolity. Dionysus is his name! Bacchus! Revelry and

  debauchery! Greed and covetousness are the gifts he instills in

  the hearts of our children! O God, save us from the Satan of

  Santa! Keep our children’s eyes averted from his malicious,

  predatory gaze! Do not seat our children upon his lap to whisper

  their coveting into his stony ear! He is an idol of idolatry! God

  knows what spirit animates these idols and makes them laugh

  their ho, ho, whoredoms and abominations and braying

  jackassery!”

  Father was in fine form. And now that he was bellowing the

  words of God, striding back and forth across the front of the

  sanctuary, Zeck could scratch the occasional itch, as long has he

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  kept his gaze locked on Father’s face.

  For an hour Father went on, telling stories of children who

  put their faith in Santa Claus, and parents who lied to their

  children about Saint Nick and taught their children that all the

  stories of Christmas were myths—including the story of the

  Christ child. Telling stories of children who became atheists

  when Santa did not bring them the gifts they coveted most.

  “Satan is a liar every time! When Santa puts a lie on the lips

  of parents, the seed of that lie is planted in the hearts of their

  children and when that seed comes to flower and bears fruit, the

  fruit of that lie is faithlessness. You do not deserve the trust of

  your children when you lie for Satan!”

  Then his voice fell to a whisper. “Jolly old Saint Nicholas,”

  he hissed. “Lend your ear this way. Don’t you tell a single soul

  what I’m going to say.” Then his voice roared out again. “Yes,

  your children whisper their secret desires to Satan and he will

  answer their prayers, not with the presents they seek, and

  certainly not with the presence of God Immanuel!—no, he will

  answer their prayers with the ashes of sin in their mouths, with

  the poison of atheism and unbelief in the plasma of their blood.

  He will drive out the hemoglobin and replace it with hellish lust!”

  And so on. And so on.

  In Zeck’s mind, the clock that kept perfect time went round

  the full forty minutes of the sermon. Father never repeated

  himself once, and yet he also never strayed from the single

  message. God’s message was always brief, Father said, but it

  took him many words to translate the pure wisdom of the Lord’s

  language into the poor English that mere mortals could

  understand.

  And Father’s sermons never ran over. He wrapped them up

  right in time. He was not a man who talked just to hear himself

  talk. He labored his labor and then he was done.

  At the end of the sermon, there was a hymn and then Father

  called upon old Brother Verlin and told him that God had seen

  him today and made his heart pure enough to pray. Verlin rose

  to his feet weeping and could hardly get out the words of the

  prayer of blessing on the congregation, he was so moved at being

  chosen for the first time since he confessed selling an old car of

  his for nearly twice what it was worth, because the buyer had

  tempted him by offering even more for it. His sin was forgiven,

  more or less. That’s what it meant, for Brother Habit to call on

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  him to pray.

  Then it was done. Zeck leapt to his feet and ran to his father

  and hugged him, as he always did, for it felt to him when such a

  sermon ended that some dust of light from heaven must linger

  still on Father’s clothing, and if Zeck could embrace him tightly

  enough, it might rub off on him, so that he could begin to become

  pure. Because heaven knew he was not pure now.

  Father loved him at such times. Father�
��s hands were gentle

  on his hair, his shoulder, his back; there was no willow rod to

  draw blood out of his shirt.

  “Look, son,” said Father. “We have a stranger here in the

  House of the Lord.”

  Zeck pulled free to look at the door. Others had noticed the

  man, too, and stood looking at him, silent until Habit Morgan

  declared him to be friend or foe. The stranger wore a uniform,

  but it wasn’t one that Zeck had seen before—not the sheriff or a

  deputy, not a fireman, not the state police.

  “Welcome to the Church of the Pure Christ,” said Father.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t arrive for the sermon.”

  “I listened from outside,” said the man. “I didn’t want to

  interrupt.”

  “Then you did well,” said Father, “for you heard the word of

  God, and yet you listened with humility.”

  “Are you Reverend Habit Morgan?” asked the man.

  “I am,” said Father, “except we have no titles among us

  except Brother and Sister. ‘Reverend’ suggests that I’m a

  certified minister, a hireling. No one certified me but God, for

  only God can teach his pure doctrine, and only God can name his

  ministers. Nor am I hired, for the servants of God are all equal in

  his sight, and must all obey the admonition of God to Adam, to

  earn his bread by the sweat of his face. I farm a plot of ground. I

  also drive a truck for United Parcel Service.”

  “Forgive me for using an unwelcome title,” said the man. “In

  my ignorance, I meant only respect.”

  But Zeck was a keen observer of human beings, and it

  seemed to him that the man had already known how Father felt

  about the title “reverend,” and he had used it deliberately.

  This was wrong. This was a pollution of the sanctuary.

  Zeck ran from Father to stand a few feet in front of the man.

  “If you tell the truth right now,” Zeck said boldly, fearing

  nothing that this man could do to him, “God will forgive you for

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  your lie and the sanctuary will be purified again.”

  The congregation gasped. Not in surprise or dismay; they

  assumed that it was God speaking through him at times like this,

  though Zeck never claimed any such thing. He denied that God

  ever spoke through him, and beyond that he could not control

  what they believed.

  “What lie was that?” asked the man, amused.

  “You know all about us,” said Zeck. “You’ve studied our

  beliefs. You’ve studied everything about Father. You know that

  it’s an offense to call him ‘reverend.’ You did it on purpose, and

  now you’re lying to pretend you meant respect.”

  “You’re correct,” said the man, still amused. “But what

  possible difference does it make?”

  “It must have made a difference to you,” said Zeck, “or you

  wouldn’t have bothered to lie.”

  By now Father stood behind him, and his hand on Zeck’s

  head told him he had said enough and it was Father’s turn now.

  “Out of the mouths of babes,” said Father to the stranger.

  “You’ve come to us with a lie on your lips, one which even a

  child could detect. Why are you here, and who sent you?”

  “I was sent by the International Fleet, and my purpose is to

  test this boy to see if he is qualified to attend Battle School.”

  “We are Christians, sir,” said Father. “God will protect us if

  that is his will. We will left no hand against our enemy.”

  “I’m not here to argue theology,” said the stranger. “I’m here

  to carry out the law. There are no exemptions because of the

  religion of the parents. ”

  “What about for the religion of the child?” asked Father.

  “Children have no religion,” said the stranger. “That’s why

  we take them young—before they have been fully indoctrinated

  in any ideology.”

  “So you can indoctrinate them in yours,” said Father.

  “Exactly,” said the man.

  Then the man reached out to Zeck. “Come with me,

  Zechariah Morgan. We’ve set up the examination in your

  parents’ house.”

  Zeck turned his back on the man.

  “He does not choose to take your test,” said Father.

  “And yet,” said the man, “he will take it, one way or another.”

  The congregation murmured at that.

  The man from the International Fleet looked around at them.

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  “Our responsibility in the International Fleet is to protect the

  human race from the Formic invaders. We protect the whole

  human race—even those who don’t wish to be protected—and

  we draw upon the most brilliant minds of the human race and

  train them for command—even those who do not wish to be

  trained. What if this boy were the most brilliant of all, the

  commander that would lead us to victory where no other could

  succeed? Should everyone else in the human race die, just so you

  in this congregation can remain … pure? ”

  “Yes,” said Father. And the congregation echoed him. “Yes.

  Yes.”

  “We are the leaven in the loaf,” said Father. “We are the salt

  that must keep its savor, lest the whole earth be destroyed. It is

  our purity that will persuade God to preserve this wicked

  generation, not your violence.”

  The man laughed. “Your purity against our violence.” His

  land lashed out and he seized Zeck by the collar of his shirt and

  dragged him sharply backward, toward him. Before anyone

  could do more than shout in protest, he had torn Zeck’s shirt from

  his body and then whirled him around to show his scarred back,

  with the freshest wounds still bright red, and the newest of all

  still beading with blood from this sudden movement. “What

  about your violence? We don’t raise our hands against children.”

  “Don’t you?” said Father. “To spare the rod is to spoil the

  child—God has told us how to make our children pure from the

  moment they achieve accountability until they have mastered

  their own discipline. I strike my son’s body to teach his spirit to

  embrace the pure love of Christ. You will teach him to hate his

  enemies, so that it no longer matters whether his body is living

  or dead, for his soul will be polluted and God will spit him out

  of his mouth.”

  The man threw Zeck’s shirt in Father’s face. “Come back to

  your house and you’ll find us there with your son, doing what the

  law requires.”

  Zeck tore away from the man’s grip. The man was holding

  him very tightly, but Zeck had a great advantage: He didn’t care

  how much it hurt to pull himself free. “I will not go with you,”

  said Zeck.

  The man touched a small electronic patch on his belt and

  immediately the door burst open and a dozen armed man filed in.

  “I will place your father under arrest,” said the man from the

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Thomas Schmidt

  fleet. “And your mother. And anyone in this congregation who

  resists me.”

  Mother came forward then, pushing her way past Father and

  several others. “Then you know nothing about us,” said Mother.

  “We have no intention of resisting you. When a Roman demands

  a cloak from us, we give unto him our coat also.” She pushed the

  two older girls toward the man. “Test them all. Test the youngest,

  too, if you can. She doesn’t speak yet, but no doubt you have

  your ways.”

  “We’ll be back for them, even though the two youngest are

  illegal. But not till they come of age.”

  “You can steal our son’s body,” said Mother. “But you can

  never steal his heart. Train him all you want. Teach him whatever

  you want. His heart is pure. He will recite your words back to

  you but he will never, never believe them. He belongs to the Pure

  Christ, not to the human race.”

  Zeck held himself still, so he could not shudder as his body

  wanted to. Mother’s boldness was rare, and always chancy. How

  would Father react to this? It was his place to speak, to act, to

  protect the family and the church.

  Then again, Father had said several times that a good

  helpmeet is one who is not afraid to give unwelcome counsel to

  her husband, and a man so foolish that he can’t hear wisdom from

  his wife is not worthy to be any woman’s husband.

  “Go with the man, Zeck,” said Father. “And answer all

  questions with pure honesty.”

  *

  Zeck got into a hovercar with the man. There was one soldier

  driving; the rest of the soldiers got into a different vehicle, a

  larger one that looked dangerous.

  “I’m Captain Bridegan,” the soldier said.

  “I don’t care what your name is,” said Zeck.

  Captain Bridegan said nothing.

  Zeck said nothing.

  They got to Zeck’s house. The door was standing open. A

  woman was waiting inside, with papers spread out on the kitchen

  table, along with a pile of blocks and other paraphernalia,

  including a small machine. She must have noticed Zeck looking

  at it because she touched it and explained, “It’s a recorder. So

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  other people can hear our session and evaluate it later.”

  Captured lightning, though Zeck. Just another device used by