Brother Clyde

This is one of my shorter stories, a rant kind of.

“I stand before the congregation not to commend you. Not to praise you. I stand before the congregation to spit on you. Self-righteous pigs, arrogant fools! Do you know what that is, that man on the cross? You would say, ‘Oh, he’s my savior.’ You’re wrong, he’s your scapegoat, and he’s your escape. The thing you look to when you can’t handle the suffering that is life. You are so pathetic, so lackluster, Nazis following a charismatic God.”

I wake up. A cold sweat drenching me eyes, making them sting.

There are mornings when I wake up and don’t know where I’ve been, while I’m in a suit. There are nights that I can’t remember, and my wife won’t look at me.

I blame it on impotence. There was a time when she used to look at me, before the therapy, before the counseling, before the medication. Now all I do is sit around and read the bible, go to church. “Brother …” and the name fades away along with some of the things that they say as he walks away. I never stand still long enough to listen, always reading, crying.

My living room, the small coffee table, the plasma TV, all this I founded on something that is falling through, is my new prison. My own bedroom door is locked to me. Every morning the only thing to greet me after my shower is my clothes, folded nicely �" not a suit. Never a suit, but yet I’m in one at the moment. The good news is she cares.

Eight o’ clock, its coffee alone

Nine o’ clock, it’s toward the job that enslaves me. It makes me realize that I need that deity, that God to make me whole again. Sifting through empty pill bottles, I look for one. No, none. Not one single happy day in my life could be paid for by the psychiatric Christ.

His job is the same thing every time. His wife’s face is plastered on every single person in his office building. Every morning there is a news paper clipping on the topic of a Ministry man within the city who has caused a sort of uproar: Brother C...  The name trails on.

Today’s story, as of last night…

“Local preacher stood before a Lutheran ministry, uninvited. He started out by choosing a verse from the bible. The witnesses say that the verse was genesis 22:2-3. Then the sermon took a turn for the worse. A witness, Mrs. Friar, says, “He said that the people of religion were as fake as closet pedophiles, f*****g child blowup dolls.”  She says that she’s not sure exactly what that means.”

I ignore it pretty well just going about my work like I usually do. Each face a living replica of my wife �" angry, unloving, silent. They all walk with their noses up, with the exclusion of some people that I’ve chosen not to talk to before.  I chose not to talk to them with reasons that were more than likely un-Christian.  The atheists, they are my only friends now, and I don’t love them. I don’t adore them, I don’t need them. They talk to me, and they are all that I have.

Humans are social creatures.

Humans are ants.

I am Human.

There are so many things that they thank me for. But all I hear is the ‘thank’ of the ‘thank you’. I don’t listen to anything that they have to say. I sit at my IKEA desk with my Ralf Lauren clothes, crunching numbers like a good accountant, not worried about their drama. My best friend at this hell hole, his name was Clyde. He was new, just got a raise. I don’t know how though, he never did his job; he was always in my cube, bothering me.

He sat on the desk to my right, most of the time, and talked about religion. He wore a suit. The suit was nice as all could be. It looked like he had just bought it that day. Today’s was black with a red tie and three crosses in the middle of the blood red.

“Masturbation is in the bible”

“So is witchcraft”

“And murder…” These are the things that I hear throughout my day. Apparently Clyde was a minister at some night services in the town. I would have never guessed aside from the big black pillows that rested beneath his eyes.

I’ll tell you that Clyde didn’t have a problem telling people where he stood and how he felt about them. A woman once asked, why do you go on like this? Clyde stood up smiling, dusting the dust from his black suit, “Let he without sin cast the first stone.” He always had the right scripture armed for a counter attack. I respect him…

Tonight I was to go with him.

Tonight I was to preach with him.

We loaded into his little car, cluttered with empty pill bottles as he drove me across the city. The wind blowing through my short, cookie-cutter hair cut. The Stepford Model of what a man should look like. But rounding the hill I could see it, a large Baptist church with small windows and no air-conditioning unit.  We still stopped at it, and he dusted himself off, he and I, at the same time. I looked at him and he looked at me, then we stepped inside.

The service took what felt like forever; however, when it finally came time that the preacher asked for testimonies of the way that God had influenced an individual’s life, Clyde stands up. I wait, sitting in the pew. The man stands before the rest of the church, who has their hands up lifting the burden off themselves to give it to God.

“Praise, praise broth’as an’ sis’a’s.” Clyde looks down at all these people from the podium, his smile wide, ravenous like a carnivorous animal. “I am Brotha Clyde, and I’s here to speak to you all about the way God touched my life.” He spits on the ground looking them over. With a gun in his hand, pointed at the preacher he looks back to the ministry. “God, benevolent in all of his glory, took my ability to have children. The God that I toiled for took the one thing that I wanted to do for him.” One woman stood up to pray for the man, but he told her to sit down. “My best friend, a homosexual. Yes, he likes butt sex! Was beaten to death outside of San Antonio for being who he was.” He looked around the room, with inquisitive eyes, “Do you want to know who the perpetrators were in that crime? Oh, I’ll tell you…” He pauses for a moment, taking in a deep breath, “Members of the church were sentenced and let off on parole because of good behavior!” Smirking, Clyde steps down from the altar, moving down the aisles of pews, looking from person to person. “Do you want to know what I learned about those men, when I visited them on their three months in prison?” There was another pause for added effect, “They were committing homosexual acts of their own! Murderous hypocrites!” Walking back up the pews toward the altar, Clyde screams, “My God! My loving benevolent God, how many wars are fought for thee?”

At this time the doors slam open and the police rush in. My wrists in handcuffs they place me in the back of a police car, my body suited in a black suit and red tie. I see myself in the mirror in the vestibule of the church, still screaming at the congregation, pointing at the preacher…

I wake up in a suit, in a jail cell, orange jump suit folded neatly near my bed…