Heaven Is Being Here Now

By Richard von Fuchs

Failing at careers and marriage, Helmut von Kampen starts a New Age church in British Columbia to cash in on the spiritual disorientation of the West Coast. He attracts masses of discontent people but the organization grows out of his control.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard von Fuchs
• Release date: Jun 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301118816

Richard von Fuchs

Dr. Richard von Fuchs was born in St. Louis, grew up in Niagara Falls, New York. He graduated from the University of Colorado and the University of Rhode Island, and much later from the University of Vienna. After teaching high school in Rhode Island and Ontario, he settled on Vancouver Island in 1971. The BC NDP (social democrats) hired him as an organizer and he became a Canadian citizen.He had walk-on parts as a fisherman, tree planter, a radio and TV news announcer, including CBC Prince Rupert, retail music store owner and piano tuner. The habit of door knocking in political campaigns led to several years as a door to door salesman.He trod the boards in amateur theatre and musicals in Courtenay, B.C in the 1970s, and then sang in some Folk Festivals and isolated bars. Twice went to Japan to teach English.His former wife, Betty, took excellent care of him.In 1990 he moved to Western Hungary to teach English at a forestry college and earned a PhD at the University of Vienna. Abandoning 33 years of atheism, he returned to the Lutheran church, and became a church janitor in Scarsdale, New York for 18 months, while teaching at Iona College. He was a Green party candidate in Ontario in 2OO3.Returning to Europe, he was employed at the University of West Hungary until 2014, settled in a bourgeois suburb of Sopron, Hungary. He has a Hungarian wife, Etelka, and a son Maximilian, born in 1996.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The doorbell rang. Carol started through her kitchen when the telephone rang. She hurried to find out who was at the door before the phone would stop ringing. She bumped into an over-sized zucchini, left indefinitely on the kitchen counter. It knocked a gallon jar of blackberry juice onto her kitchen floor.

God xxxx it! Son of a bitch! She flung open her door. What do you want?

Two young men in suits and ties, with plastic name tags and briefcases were standing on the little slab of concrete in her carport which served as a vestigial porch. The phone kept ringing.

A stocky young man with a high fashion haircut, (who was an inch too short to get into the RCMP), smiled and said, Have you ever thought about enjoying the here and now?

The phone kept ringing.

Go xxxx yourself! Carol shouted and slammed the door.

The taller boy, with paste covered pimples, was already in retreat. Come on Bert. I don’t think we can tune into her wavelength right now. Let’s find somebody more harmonic.

The phone was still ringing. Blackberry juice oozed deeper into the cracks in the kitchen floor, starting to seep into the insulation, heading for the plasterboard that was the basement ceiling where it would leave an indelible pattern. It would command a high price at the museum of modern art, if Carol could have opened herself to marketing this accidental work of art.

Yes? Carol snarled into the phone.

Hello, is this 336-2460?

Yes! Whadaya want?

May I speak to Carol Markham?

That’s me, dammit! What the hell do you want?

Carol, this is Anne. What’s the matter?

I just spilled a ton of blackberry juice on the floor because I was trying to answer the door and the phone at the same time.

I’m sorry. Let me call you back.

Never mind. It was just a couple of Bible pounders.

What did they want?

How the xxx should I know? And I don’t give a xxxx. What do YOU want?

Well, uh, we’re having a barbecue tomorrow, and I thought you and Don might want to come.

Chapter 2

Bert and Larry had knocked on 37 doors when the National Research Council Dominion Observatory time signal beeped at 10 a.m., Pacific Standard Time. Fourteen people answered the door. Two of them took the literature. One of them was almost cordial, but non-committal.

Must be getting close to lunch time Larry said to his feet.

Bert looked at his diver’s wristwatch. It’s just ten o’clock. What are you talking about?

Isn’t this kind of a waste of time?

Larry, we’re planting seeds. In a month or two, or maybe next year, some of these people are going to join. Listen, a farmer doesn’t plunk down his seeds and then ask, ‘Where’s the harvest?’ It takes time.

Larry brushed a limp lock of brown hair out of his eyes. He wiggled the knot in his tie. I think we’re casting seed on barren ground.

It wasn’t barren, really. Their grandparents’ generation had logged it for the first time.

Their parents’ generation dreamed of buying it in 1/5 acre parcels. Now it was covered with tract homes with either cedar or vinyl siding that looked a lot like cedar, except on bright days. Some of the white houses had brown painted boards set into their exterior plaster so they looked Tudor from half a mile away. Little maple trees, real trees that shed their leaves like the kind back East, were springing into adolescence in front of the boxes.

Bert strode ahead toward the next house. This one had the carport on the right and a beautiful front lawn that looked like the plastic crap that football players slide around on.

I don’t know how to cheer you up, but try not to bring me down for a while.

Bert rang the bell by the aluminum screen door. Larry hung back, twisting his toes and wishing he were somewhere else.

A very young woman in a lavender jogging suit came to the door.

Hi! Is your mother home? Bert asked. There was an awkward pause.

She lives in Duncan. Another pause.

Oh. Bert got the picture. He went on automatic. Have you ever thought about enjoying the here and how?

What?

Are you living in the now?

I don’t understand you. What does that mean?

Larry felt guilty about his temptation to quit, so he took a step forward and held out a leaflet. BE HERE NOW it said in fuchsia type, and a washed out canary yellow background over a picture of a family having a picnic in the same park Dick and Jane would have visited.

May we come in for a minute? It takes a few minutes to explain.

I am kind of busy now.

Bert put his hand on the handle of the screen door.

Ack! The woman screeched and retreated as if a cobra had lunged at her door.

Sorry, Bert stammered. Don’t get me wrong.

Bert! Larry hissed, like steam from a boiler.

We’re not muggers or anything, Bert explained earnestly to his socks. He stuffed his offending right hand into his pocket. He reared back his head and forced himself to look the astonished woman in the eyes.

What do you want? she asked. Curiosity was overcoming caution.

We are from the Folks Church. Larry lightly brushed his name tag. I’m Larry McPhee and he’s Bert Allard.

Sorry I have my own beliefs. She closed the door.

Larry tried a stage whisper, but his voice cracked. My God, what were you trying to do, bust down the door?

Bag it brother, Bert growled as he turned away in defeat.

They did not run, but they walked so fast that their hips did funny things. Back on the sidewalk, Bert carefully looked at his watch.

Well, I think it’s too early for lunch, but how about a break for coffee?

Great idea. What about Steiner’s?

Chapter 3

Nine people in their 30s and 40s were standing around Anne and Rob’s sundeck. It was most unusual to have a barbecue in April on Vancouver Island, but the rains were taking a break. It was a source of worry to the farmers and loggers, but a source of joy to the suburbanites. Carol was wearing fire-red hand woven skirt. It looked like it came from the Goodwill Store, and cost about 4 dollars, or else from a crafts-person on Hornby Island, and cost 85 dollars at the Summer Faire. Her top was made from a wrinkly orange fabric that she got in Greece last year.

Carol said, Anne, I’m sorry I was so miserable to you on the phone. Thanks for inviting us.

Glad you and Don could make it. Anne hadn’t really forgiven her, but what was she supposed to do, belt Carol in the puss with an uncooked fish? A neat idea she thought to herself. Christ, Carol could be a weird one!

Sensing the lack of forgiveness, Carol plunged on. I’ve got this ghastly purple stain on the floor in the floor in the kitchen and it ruined the ceiling in the basement playroom. Somehow Anne had to know that SHE was responsible for the blackberry bomb.

How did that happen?

When you called, I was trying to answer the door and the phone at the same time and I knocked over all the blackberry juice I had just made. You see, Anne, it was really all your own fault.

No point in crying over spilled milk.

I get so pissed off when those Bible punchers invade my space.

Must be an epidemic. Ted and Suzy said they had them at their place this morning.

What? Ted asked, hearing his name. He belonged in the dining room of a cruise ship. He was wasting himself in the company of these ex-hippies, with kids in junior high school, these plodding careerists, embarrassed by their moderate success. Ted had dignity, class and grace, but who the hell would notice on the West coast?

I was just telling Carol about your visitors, Anne said.

Oh yes, them. It wasn't a drawl; it wasn't Oxford; it was hard to identify. Ted came from Britain, (like many people in BC), but he wasn't obnoxious about it.

He always seems to be thinking about sex Anne thought to herself.

I always think about sex when I look at Ted Carol thought.

Ted didn't talk much about sex, but he liked to look at beautiful women, women who used to be beautiful, and girls who would one day be beautiful. His job did not occupy much of his time or talent. The toughest part of it was being civil to the nobodies who didn't deserve it. Other than that, he put in his time and collected a comfortable salary. He was grateful in a way. When he arrived in BC, he went to work on the tugboats in his slippery city shoes. Before that he had done reasonably well as a salesman in the States but what a hell of a way to make a living! Never knowing if your next paycheck would be a stack of zeros, which the computer felt obliged to print as long as you were on the active list.

You were saying, Ted continued, invitingly. He hated to let on that his hearing was damaged from the noise of the engines of ships, and all he had heard was his name. Still they were talking about him and Carol was damned attractive.

I was telling Carol about those weirdoes who came to your place this morning, Anne said.

Suzy slid up to Ted's elbow. God xxx it, he 's corralling two at once she thought.

Yes, they were quite a pair, Suzy answered without being asked. Did they come to your place? she asked Carol. Too bad that hookers can't work in a small town like this. No, maybe at her age, she would be a madam.

None of this showed in Suzy's smile. She was from a good family in Virginia. Rabid nationalists in Canada made her feel a bit apologetic, but she was just as gracious as Ted – more gracious than any other woman at the party – if only she could stop thinking out loud.

I guess so, carol said. Who the hell wants to talk about them, anyway? Ted, you old dog, what are you up to these days? I didn't really give them the time of day.

What a body! Ted Thought. Why do you wear such stupid wrinkly clothes?

They were really kind of interesting, Suzy continued, looking hard at Carol. She had just better watch it!

Who? Paul asked, He used to be kind of a buddy. Now everybody found him a drag. He wasn't guilty of anything – no unspeakable outrages. People just got tired of him. They didn't know why.

A couple of kids from the Folks Church, or whatever they call it. Suzy didn't mind having an audience. Since her kids moved out, she felt like a shadow most of the time. She didn't work. (I DO have a job she would insist.) The liberated sisters were carelessly cruel to her. They devalued her role as Ted's everything. That and painting, which she was going to pick up again, soon, as she had been saying for the last 16 years.

Anne wished that Suzy and Carol would have a punch out. That would enliven the barbecue. This town seemed like such a paradise when she moved here from the city, but God almighty, it could be dull. She couldn't support the faltering conversation. I've got to make this party work, until I get drunk enough not to care. What is the Folks Church? she asked, not giving a XXXX.

Ted felt that everyone had read his mind, and it was time to be bluff and hearty. Oh they're just a cult of some sort. Very New Age, you know.

How can a man get to be that smug? Carol wondered. He's got something and he knows it.

What do they believe in?" Paul asked.

Suzy darted in, "As near as I can tell, it's a lot of psychic stuff and some positive thinking from Psychology Today."

Well they don't really know, at their age, Ted finessed.

Is it a church? Paul wanted to know.

I don't know.

Not really.

Carol asked, Why the hell are they going door to door?

Oh the usual thing, trying to raise money and get new members, I suppose. Everything Ted said had an air of quiet authority, even when he did not know what he was talking about. Maybe that was the secret of his success – knowing the value of appearances.

Chapter 4

Steiner's was almost empty, but they thrived on the take-out trade. The little tables gave it a European air, which this ugly setting badly needed. It was a raw parking lot, slathered over a mess of glacial debris – no border of flowers, no moss or ivy – West Coast, brutal, new.

Let me get the coffee, Larry offered. He felt like a creep being the weak sister.

Bert decided not to argue. Two sugars if you don't mind. He eyed a man at the cash register, paying for a gob of dough, sold as pastry. He looks familiar.

The man at the cash register returned Bert's stare. He couldn't place Bert either.

Think it will rain? Bert asked.

I can't believe this great weather.

It's easier going door to door when it isn't raining.

When it does, I suppose we will still have to go.

Hey it's not a Christian martyr trip. When the vibes converge, we point the way. If it becomes an ordeal, it's not good for any of us.

Do you ever wonder if the logic of harmonic living takes us to the point where we are making a mistake to even tell people about the Folks Church. I mean, when they are ready, won't they find out any way?

You really hate this, don't you Larry.

If we had life insurance, or vacuum cleaners, at least we would be getting rich.

Then maybe you should stop, or go into sales.

What have we accomplished today, Bert? Why the hell do I always sound like the wimp, even in a group of two?

Bert checked his notepad. Fourteen people were contacted; two of them took our literature. Every 'no' takes us one step closer to a 'yes.'

Hell, you sound like a salesman, Larry kidded.

I am. We both are, in a way. We're selling clear mindedness, and inner-peace, and that's the road to world peace. What's wrong with doing that?

I'm not cut out to be a saint. All those slamming doors can't be good for a person.

We have only worked a quarter of a day. We have as much to do before lunch as we have done so far. Larry looked at the ceiling. Bert pressed on. It's in the numbers. If we see enough people, we simply have to score. Somebody has been looking and searching and reading, and then POW! We come along, and hit the same frequency, and we have another member. What could be simpler?

Sure it's simple. It just isn't easy, Larry argued.

Nobody ever said it was easy.

But wait a minute. Isn't that the struggling martyr trip? Aren't we supposed to be about going with the flow, here and now, and not beating our heads against the wall because people aren't the way they could be, I mean the way they're supposed to be?

Bert actually enjoyed this more than the door to door business, so he eagerly got into the argument. Hey, there are a lot of people in India and in the Far East sitting around, waiting for things to, ah, happen naturally. Like the baron said, gardening isn't natural, but it is natural to garden. If we don't grow, we don't eat.

What about hunter gatherers?

You got that in college, didn't you?

That's not the worst crime I ever committed, Larry huffed.

On the West Coast, it might have been.

Just before 3 p.m., Bert and Larry ran out of leaflets and headed back to the new World Headquarters of the Folks Church.

Hi Sheila, Bert greeted the receptionist.

Hi Bert, Larry.

You got any more of those introductory leaflets?

Sure.

Sheila was in her early thirties with auburn hair in a smooth page boy cut and wore big plastic glasses, which made her look like a grade school kid. Larry could not recall seeing her when she was not smiling. It wasn't a pasted on smile, like some sales people use every day to mask their anger and frustration. It wasn't a drugged Moonie kind of grin. She just glowed from within. To him there was something amazingly asexual about her.

I bet she never had any fun Larry mused.

Sheila dug around in the filing cabinet. How many do you want?

How many people live in this town? Larry asked with a grin.

I like your optimism, but I have to distribute what I have, here and now.

Here and now – right. Ah, hell, I mean heck, Larry blushed slightly at his lapse, Maybe 50.

Hey, there are no bad words; there are no bad people.

I'd like to bop her on the head Larry thought. She's too damn perfect. It would be like putting foot prints in the snow where nobody ever walked before. His thoughts started to lead into darker channels before he censored them.

How did it go today? Sheila asked Bert.

Pretty good.

About the same as usual, Larry chimed in.

Are you going out again today?

I don't know, Larry said.

Thought we might try some phone work, Bert improvised.

Are you sure you need 50 leaflets?

After much negotiation, Sheila gave each proselytizer ten, and advised them to pick up the rest when they were going out again.

Bert felt unmasked and silently accused of cowardice. Larry wished that he were somewhere else, but he didn't know where. Both of them felt the eternal resentment of shock troops toward their quartermasters who count out bullets, but have no idea of what life is like 'at the front.'

Sheila was wearing the new church T-shirt. It had a cartoon of 'The Little Brown Church in the Vale,' with multiracial hands coming out of it welcoming new-comers. I'm in heaven, here and now, was lettered in gold Gothic script below the picture.

Larry wondered if wearing a billboard like this would help his efforts, or if he would feel too silly to wear it in public. The church gave Larry an anchor in a world lost in a spiritual vacuum. At times it gave him a sense of inner-peace that was more potent than any drug he had ever tried. Still, the daily grind of butting heads with the unenlightened was not what he had signed up for, but what else was there for him to do? He had no particular salable assets or credentials. I'm selling my virginal appearance, living off the avails of my body. Signing a contract with the church as a full time missionary with the church took care of the tedious business of food, shelter and pocket money. The alternative was going back to live with his parents and eating crow.

Oh my God! You're hooked on a cult! his mother had said. His father hadn't said much, but he did make broad hints about Larry learning a trade. If Larry had been older, he would have seen this struggle as the natural cycle of leaving the nest. He already knew that he would never go back to being their kid living at home. Birds don't get back into the nest. They either learn to fly, or get eaten by someone's adorable fluffy cat. There must be some way to enjoy the benefits of this profoundly sensible religion without going through the wringer every day. 'No free lunch,' 'Everything has a price,' 'You pay in the long run.' The slogans of capitalism echoed through his mind.

Bert was dawdling toward the phone room, looking accusingly at Larry, who seemed to have stepped into a puddle of instant glue.

Sheila broke the tension. Hey you guys will be glad to hear that the Baron phoned this morning.

They were expected to make a great show of enthusiasm, but the real source of their joy was that this was a perfect opportunity to delay their onerous task of enlightening the masses.

Hey, really! Bert said.

No kidding! from Larry.

He'll be here on Monday. He wants to meet the press and have an open house.

You want us to set it up? Larry offered, beaming with joy.

Well, I could do it – Sheila began.

No, no, there's too much to do. You have to meet with these guys personally. It makes a lot of difference.

Sheila saw through their act but gave in. sure, if you guys can get it done today.

No problem, Larry said, racing out the door.

Chapter 5

Baron Helmut von Kampen, (formerly known as Al), was trying to look relaxed in a modern black leatherette clam shell chair. He was balding, a bit below average height, and muscular, chunky or fat, depending on your point of view. Curly brown ringlets of hair on the sides of his sunburned face gave him a babyish or angelic expression. He was holding court in the Folks Church Sunday School/Reception Hall/Coffee Room. A skinny kid set up a video camera on a tripod in the corner for the local cable TV channel. A very bored free-lance newspaper reporter had been called out of retirement from the Royal Canadian Legion to help out the upstart newspaper in town. His rival, a barrel-shaped woman who captained the curling team was on the point of falling out of another clam shell chair balancing a notepad and a tape recorder on her knee. She was the assistant editor of the real newspaper which had been offering their version of the news to the community for three generations.

A very nervous woman with an unpronounceable name was leaning over Al, that is the Baron, ruining the TV picture by shoving a microphone in his face. It worked some of the time and she was afraid of losing another big time interview, which she could either syndicate (since the station manager was out fishing) or add to her collection (she called it her portfolio) which she could use to get a job in a bigger town where they had equipment which worked.

A few curious locals, Larry, Bert, and five part-time church workers vibrated around trying to look like a congregation while Sheila looked on and smiled. At the moment the radio gal was dominating the press conference.

Using her official sing-song radio voice, she asked, What did you do before God told you to start the Folks Church?

Oh quite a variety of things. This was not the direction that he wanted the interview to go, but after three years of almost full time church work, he was still amazed at how inept he felt in trying to manipulate reporters. The greener they were, the harder it was for some reason.

Could you be more specific? she badgered.

Now a seasoned reporter like the old guy dozing in the corner would never pull that Perry Mason stuff. To get along, you've got to go along. He would write a nicely balanced piece that would not offend the established churches, or the advertisers, or the new converts to this wacky cult, but still show that this little town was open-minded, and more importantly, almost in the vanguard of New Age thought, not a backwater at all.

Unsung genius, Al thought, millions of them around the word turn out what looks like innocuous pap, but it is really a brilliant synthesis of claptrap and prejudice with just a dollop of reality thrown in.

Well, I tried your trade for a while.

Which stations?

They were mostly in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. God xxx it! There I go again – self deprecating negative xxxx. Only a flop works in the bush.

He drank his way out of a few jobs, pushing past the limits of tolerance of even the bibulous north.

And a short bit with the C.B.C. in Toronto. As a night watchman. That should shut her up.

When?

Perhaps the rest of you have some questions about the Folks Church. Silence. We are experiencing remarkable growth.

How many members?

Christ! Why does she have to be a girl? No wonder men beat up women. They commit suicide with their yaps. Sheila, what is the extent of our membership here at the moment?

That sounded like Prime Minister Joe Clark's famous What is the totality of your landholdings?

Will I ever get used to dealing with these people? Without them you're dead. It's O.K. if they hate you but if you can't hold their attention... Maybe I should punch her in the head. That would really be news. But there is no way to climb down from that. Once you become a villain in pro-wrestling or anywhere else, they won't give you back your virginity. Pleas of nervous strain, over-work, personal problems, the usual xxx about why adults act like children wouldn't save me.

Close to 200, Sheila lied.

Well, 117 is closer to 200 than 5 is. That's why she got the job. Always smooth, always smiling. XXXX! She could run this place better than I ever will.

When did you start the church? the fat one demanded.

The Baron felt another surge of anger. Must they be so bald? It's not like starting a car. He knew his smile was forced and fake. It was almost an accident.

Chapter 6

Walking around Prince Rupert three yeas ago, aching from his tree planting job, the Baron was struck by all the little old churches. Each one had a minster, and probably a secretary or two, and not one of them would ever have to scrabble around on a rocky hillside looking for a place to plant a tree. They only time they ever get wet is when they get in and out of their cars. They never have to worry about What the hell will I do next? When their bodies wear out, when their wrists won't heal, when their backs rebel and can't be chiropracted back into shape for more front line service, they won't have to think What the hell will I do now?

If they drink a bit, who knows? They can do it in the privacy of their studies. XXX, they can do it in the chancel, whatever that is. If they go stale and run out of ideas, so much the better. Instead of being washed-up and kicked out, they become champions of orthodoxy, fighting the swirling tides of heresy. And these churches are small. Can't be over 150 members. Now if I could just find 100 people to each give me 1% of their incomes, I would have an income myself. I would never have to go through this xxx again. No more resumes. No more firm, but not too firm, hearty handshakes. No more looking eager, without being desperate or hysterical, calm but not disinterested, alert, but not wired, and constantly XXXX up the interview by being too informal, revealing too much of myself, creating those ghastly bombs in conversation that seemed to fall out of the sky.

That was when he was sober. He had heard stories about his job seeking when he was loaded, but everything seemed so distant and gentle then, both friendly and amusing.

So people can't take a little joke. Bunch of uptight XXXXs, joyless grim reapers, spreading living death wherever they go. If they tithe, I would need only ten people. Ten people! My God, there must be ten fools in the world who would ease my burden of existence. I can't believe anybody really tithes any more, anymore than they are all faithful to their wives and husbands. I could offer a bargain discount, only 10% of a tithe. No, I would have to smooth it out, so it would have the appeal of 'Attention shoppers' – the familiar carny ring of the big box store, with the solid assurance of – of what? The xxxx these people are peddling. Live forever, never die, resurrection of the body the words I used to chant as a kid. Choking on my necktie, half my collar up and the other side down, looking to the world like a clown and not knowing it, pressing my crotch up against the pew in front. There is a power in the combined unison chanting of 200 people. Is it like batteries in a series, or whatever way it was that gave them more power? No matter how stupid the words are in the cold light of clinical analysis, when they are chanted in unison they take on a power and a meaning of their own. It is like watching a monster jumbo jet get airborne, impossible, unbelievable, a flying apartment house, bigger than two house lots, but they fly!

Virgin Birth? Sure, tell that one to Joseph. Well what was he supposed to do? She was young, eager, and pretty and he was not young, not handsome, and there was not a hell of a lot of choice in a small village. You bend a little. If she wants to say it was an angel, go along. The alternative is solo sex for the rest of your life. If he was younger but, XXXX it, he was not. It there were any consolations about getting creaky and bald, it was that you no longer give a xxxx. Things didn't get you so much, just as your heart did not skyrocket over a new love or crumble when it failed. Everything mellowed out.

Forgiveness of sins? Well that is an easy one. Everybody wants that.

Miracles? Snow is a miracle. Making a tree grow, adding billions of cells in the right place day and night. Rain – rivers keep flowing whether it rains or not. A dog jumping all over you. Think of coordinating all those neurons and receptors. Not even the Japanese have figured out how to build a dog, or a robot that can convince you that he adores you. Anyway, there are lots of miracles. That would not be a problem.

Now, what do people really want to hear? Ten? Why stop at ten or even a hundred? That economist from M.I.Ttalked about the critical take-off point for backwards, sorry make that less developed, countries. It is hard to overcome inertia and to get anything started, but once something starts to fly, there is almost no limit to what you can get to fly.

No, if it was going to work at all, he would have to set his sights a little higher than mere animal survival.

So what will they swallow? The J.W.'s have shown that there is almost no limit to what people will believe. The weirder it is, the harder they work at it. You don't see Anglicans out harassing people at their doorsteps, but then the mainstream Christian churches aren't growing either. They are dying out, like old trees in an orchard, slowly, almost imperceptibly without a moan of complaint. But the wacko ones, the anti-evolution TV shysters, they grow no matter what they do: ‘I didn't think it was stealing.’ ‘I am not a crook.’ ‘I have sinned. I humbly beg your forgiveness.’ Real tears. Why not?

And then the Moslems. 'Die for the Ayatollah.' Die to avenge a wrong committed 1,400 years ago. Flog yourself until you bleed. Immediate paradise. That's the answer! The more a church asks, the more people will give. The tight-assed moribund churches don't want to cause a fuss or make a spectacle of themselves, so they don't dare ask, they don't get anything, and they die. Imagine a church-load of Presbyterians or Methodists whipping themselves until they bled. Going on Holy wars.

It was almost too unpleasant to think about.

Al had enough money for two more nights at the flop house. If his tools came on the bus, he might be able to scare up enough work to eat by Friday. He was chewing on the end of a loaf of French bread he had just bought at a supermarket and eating a grapefruit as if it were a tangerine. It curdled the quart of milk he had just drunk, but he got it on a whim.

Our bodies are supposed to know exactly what they need. Babies eat a perfectly balanced diet if they have an unlimited choice. We get malnourished and diseased if we don't listen to our bodies. We already know what is good for us. That must apply to our heads as well. Alkies know they shouldn't drink. Bums know they ought to work. Even most criminals know that they shouldn't do what they do. We know what we should do for ourselves, but we don't do it.

He knew he shouldn't have taken the job tree planting or else he should have stayed until they physically pushed him out of camp. He let women, young women, strong, healthy young women with clipboards, scold and bully him out. Got to plant more, got to double up. Go for a thousand. He was too damn old for that XXX. Four hundred carefully planted trees a day seemed reasonable enough.

It wasn't nearly as boring as he thought it would be, standing in the mountains, staring at the ice cream covered peaks. He remembered when he was a newly wed, a young professional with very soft hands. He drove that shiny new car endless butt aching miles out into the wilderness for a few stolen glimpses of scenery like this, while his bride bitched that there was nothing here and she was bored. It cost an arm and a leg to do it, and here he was getting paid to enjoy it. Birds singing, fresh air, really nice people. A few writers. Hell, they were all writers except for the shaggy doper – the super-planter from Lasqueti Island. Another guy owned the same kind of business Al had been in. Like prisoners who had had respectable lives on the outside, the irony