Retail Religion

By Charles Roy Roberts

James Harkin is expanding business in the 1970’s. Moving to a new mall will supply big-ticket grandeur to the Texas border department store. The personnel are to be increased and new employees would work under the stern patron. One of the new hires crashes a plane into a religious shrine and a funeral follows. The plane was a comet of premonition. Osteen Swain is the personal choice of egocentric and cunning owner, Harkin. Swain is the qualified and pricy jewelry man. Harkin uses his business acumen to deceive family, friends, and all that cross his path. A woman’s shoe buyer, Paul Pratt is recruited. Osteen is to instruct the new buyer in the corporate discipline. Harkin banishes Osteen and Paul to the construction site to sweat the summer heat. Osteen is indiscriminate in his seductions and avoids all responsibility while devising schemes to avoid work through flexibility and adaption. Harkin sends Carla Trull, his best friend’s daughter, to enforce the house rules. O’Friel’s, the Friday night watering hole, unites Talbert a computer-tech and Gayle, the furniture manager, with Osteen and Paul. The O’Friel boys are a group that melds ideas, adventure and gossip into fables. The New York market trip is Paul’s first solo buy and adds to his self-confidence. He discovers why Osteen was banished to the foreign legion on the Texas border. Construction on the store ends and the opening approaches with an opulent presentation. Harkin informs employees that, “Jesus will not return on Wednesday because I play Golf that day.” Paul’s change comes when Carla trollops him into a torrid relationship and lures him into a San Antonio trip. He rides a delicate teetering edge with his boss’s social connection. Meanwhile, O’Friel’s becomes the sanity balance in a tormented environment. The doldrums of retail turns into the Christmas rush. Osteen encounters Bobbie Tipton, an ordinary but smart and driven farm girl. In a reversal of fate, Osteen is pursued as a focus of desire. Christmas comes with the usual presents exchanged but dinner for the two single men is eaten alone. Spring erupts with Paul being caught by Carla’s father in the wrong place. Paul’s parents travel south for a winter visit with the unemployed son. The spring accounting brings reform. Harkin tightens his grip with an employee shake up. The owner selects new pet employees without scrutiny. Harkin knows his current ferial employees need taming and to learn respect. The O’Friel boys sink to a low profile. Osteen goes to a gemological meeting and is called back to the store as diamonds are missing from the vault. Harkin’s new primadonnas are flamboyant crooks. Osteen, under suspicion, quits and goes into hiding at Bobbies hunting camp. Bobbie warms his chill and Osteen discovers he likes country life. The Harkin family sends James Harkin on vacation while his son, Rodney, tries to rectify the personnel problems. The money-making ostracized managers are lured back as cash is drained without effective people. Osteen and Paul’s insecurity and obligation moves them to discover, what you project is not necessarily who you are. Paul learns that romance does not have to be tumultuous. The O’Friel boys find new and evasive ways to deal with the mercurial standards of management. Osteen and Paul try humor and talent to misdirect their retail monster from devouring its own. A new stratagem with refined skills focuses them on a path that avoids the sinister owner. Harkin is rewarded in kind. Though the book is fiction, all business sequences are based on real occurrences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles Roy Roberts
• Release date: Sep 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781495125867

Charles Roy Roberts

Retired, Jeweler, Librarian, clockmaker. Harlingen, Rio Grande Valley, Texas

Book preview

Retail Religion

By

CHARLES ROY ROBERTS

Copyright © 2014 by Charles Roy Roberts

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

INDEX

1 FLYING HIGH

2 THEATER OF THE OBSURD

3 RHYTHM SELLS

4 BLUE FLAG IRIS

5 O’FIERL’S

6 MARKET

7 BLOSSUM UNFURLS

8 CONSECRATION OF THE TEMPLE

9 FALL IN THE AIR

10 SAN ANTONIO

11 CHRISTMAS

12 SAINT ASSETS

13 SWEATER

14 DOLDROMS

15 LAZARUS RIPE FOR RESURECTION

16 DAD COMES FOR A VISIT

17 TUMULT

18 HALCYON DAYS

19 SO YOU WANT TO BE A SHOE MAGNATE

20 ROSES, ROSE AND BREAST MILK

21 MASSIVE

22 CAMARILLA

23 FOOLSMATE: THE ALIAN INVASION

24 THE PSALM OF HARKIN

25 WEASEL WORD

26 PARABLE OF THE TALENTS

27 WORMING AWAY

28 GLOATING SNEER

29 THE PRINCE OF NAUGHT

1

FLYING HIGH

Herbert Pike’s future as a bric-a-brac salesman at the Rio Grande Valley’s most uppity arrogant department store was a curse beyond his ability of cooping. The disrespect shown by his family and God was more than he could endure. He was a pilot not a brittle trinket peddler to the wealthy. The first day of work would never come. Monday was an eternity away. Applying full power, raising the nose of the Piper Cub it gained altitude turning left to the north. This was the third pass over the Shrine of the Virgin in San Juan, Texas.

Herbert had first wanted to make his impression on Harkin’s Department Store, that demeaning old established business; but the building was in downtown Donna. The store was stuck between too many old buildings to destroy it alone, and the new store at the mall south of town was only a concrete foundation.

Here at the church, he could approach the broad part of the shrine roof from the north. Too bad, that there was not enough cash in the children’s piggy banks to buy more fuel. His mind was set to meet his day of destiny. He would be known forever as a martyr to his family’s greed.

Brenda, Herbert’s wife, and her parents, despite his devotion to the children, ragged him un-mercilessly. Then, those uncaring souls at the disabilities insurance office accused him of fraud. Even strangers had driven him to this point. It was not his fault that circumstances plotted against him. Shame would haunt all of them for their abuse. Herbert lined up for the third pass over the Shrine of the Virgin and kept the throttle at full power.

His whole life would not pass in front of him as old wives tales foretold. There was not that much life to re-experience. Percodan made his brain think very slowly. Soon there would be no pain at all. The oxycodone eased the pain in his back and gave him a convoluted courage. His foggy recall focused on the demeaning interview with Reginald Osteen Swain at Harkin’s. There he sat facing the over dressed dandy on a couch on the third floor furniture display. All around him were statues made into table lamps.

Though the fancy dressed lounge lizard smiled, his words crawled like they came off a tongue with legs. This is the change you need to become a merchant. Sales will bring meaning to your life. I see by your resume you have been lost for many years in the wilderness as a follower. I am bringing you to the Promised Land. Selling for a profit will take you away from the false idols.

Herbert was humiliated by being there. My wife, Brenda, expressed her appreciation that Lillian and you have found me this position but I know nothing about commercial enterprise. My father was an oilfield worker and I was in the military and then a fireman. I do not have the skill; I can’t talk to people and sell items. The preacher told Mr. Pike that demons take many guises. Osteen Swain’s smile was smarmy evil. He was Brenda’s cousin’s lover, a known seducer with words.

The pretty man kept pitching. Salvation is in this work. The shepherd builds and protects his flock. Sheep by themselves just exist. I will help you with the skills. You have to transform from being a customer, which you have been all your life, to a peddler. Just consider me the prophet of profits.

I told him, Never trusted salesmen. They are devious liars. I was not going to be herded or deceived by listening to his words. Rolling the word over and over again, deceiver, I blocked him out.

The store’s pitchman would not stop, We are cash levers on the fulcrum of the world. The world is not about you but what you can and should do.

Lying, prying, these ware demonic words to a righteous flyer. I told him straight to his face, I don’t know if I can sound convincing selling. I do not believe in the deception. There is no way I’m selling trinkets.

His smile was waning. Believe in yourself, the cozener told me. The items are just space holders. You are not selling objects but selling yourself. If you can’t sell you then you have no value and no life. He looked at me as he was pulling the lever on the toilet.

No value and no life? It only reinforced that my soul was being sold. I was not going to buy this false prophet. The church, the government, and now Harkin’s Department store was trying to compromise my vary existence. The man in the silk suit was the devil.

He turned to my resume. I see you are a pilot. That takes the ability to adjust and think quickly.

Think quickly, well maybe. My flight instructor said I would need another twenty hour of instruction and practice to get a license. Where was that money coming from, not from Brenda? I should have been through flight training by now. The pilot description was a small fudging on the resume. As a pilot, I have to think quickly.

Herbert you are aspiring to be an air taxi driver. The sky does not make you free. Money buys your freedom, chaff flies away. Osteen Swain’s frustration worked as a vacuum across the coffee table. I felt him sucking away my hope. The dye was cast. A pilot would rather go down in flames than become a worm underfoot.

It was time to close off this interview. What will I need to ware when I come in Monday?

Dress like for church. Swain handed my resume back to me. I could read his face it was the church of the devil. I was not coming. The wind could blow my dust away.

Below inside the Shrine laid out as a cross, Viejo walked down the aisles of the church picking up the trash. The passing of the plane was barely noticed. Though the building was not ancient, it was still a holy shrine. The Romanesque arched ceilings and the large stained glass windows were held steady by modern steel and fired-brick construction. On the northeast corner of the church stood the five-story brick belfry shaped with a pyramid monument crown. As a Shrine this Catholic Church was still diminutive to the First Baptist Church down town. He had made the church clean and presentable for the parish worshipers for twenty years, He was ever grateful to Father Eric for the opportunity to work for the church after the cannery had closed. The result of farm labor demands by the new organized union was mass unemployment. Jobs were tough to get and keep. Viejo’s wife came every day to bless Jesus for her husband’s job.

The traditional way was what Viejo and his wife had learned to respect. The instruction of obeying by the Church reinforced the dictation. They had instilled these values in rearing their four children. Good children needed to be polite and grateful for any work they could get.

In front of the alter the stiff-jointed old man knelt before the blessed Virgin. He crossed himself. Viejo stood moving to the stained glass windows on the north walls to dust the sills. The painted plaster Virgin statue at the alter wore a wide flaring skirt and a gold removable crown. Her expression did not change with his homage.

The insects at the window did start to scurry as Viejo approached. Flies buzzed along the colored leaded glass. Bugs had detected the beacon call of the opossum lying dead and cold by the street curb. Trying to escape, the little insects left a frustrated group of twitching leggy bodies staring skyward on the windowsill. Bible people and religious symbols were two-dimensional shapes in color holding them prisoner. Viejo shuffled the carcasses into a plastic pail. He heard without thinking about the faint far away sound of an airplane in the sky.

Outside, a young girl played on the grass under the trees surrounding the church. This was a secure and happy place compared to her backyard of dirt and angry dogs. The churchyard offered cleanliness, space and the protection. The trees watched her dance and spin in free abandon.

The determined airplane approached closer and the engine pitch increased in octaves, compressing sound with the Doppler Effect. The Piper etched a streak across the sky. Engine roar rose to a high pitch before dropping in a sound scale and ending in a boom.

The roof of the church exploded in sound and fire. Boards, mortar and brick burst forth, nullifying architectural bindings. Viejo sucked one last gasp of flaming air, and then collapsed with sizzling skin.

The little girl was pummeled with the architectural parts. Hail fell from the sky as pieces of the church and plane. She lay prostrate in the grass like an offering at the burning alter. The only sounds were roof supports chemically contorting and failing to uphold their loads. Plywood sheeting was consumed in fire, allowing a waterfall of arched clay tiles to plunge. The sound moved ever faster in a cadenza of shatter. Innocence now lay in the tile shards under the tree. She was bruised but alive.

Through out the neighborhood, screen doors opened and slapped the frames of the houses. Neighbors gathered to inquire about the morning ruckus. Families stood on front porches to marvel at the smoke and flame ascending in the far distance. The grandfathers would explain with experienced cynicism that it was another case of Jewish lighting striking an abandoned canning plant.

Frantic call went out to attend the emergency. Fire trucks abandoned the surrounding cities to save the sacred church. This Shrine was a pilgrimage point for both American and Mexican Catholics. Uniformed city workers fought the fire brilliantly. One valiant fireman rescued the Sacred Virgin statue. He emerged from the collapsing building without a scratch, the holy artifact tucked against his waist like a football in scrimmage. The Virgin was and remained untouched, true to her name. A miracle vouched them both safe.

This special miracle would place a premium value on the rosaries sold to raise money for the next shrine. The company that made miniatures of the Washington Monument also received a commission to make models of the bell tower. The building was a total loss except for the unscathed bell tower and virgin statue. A venerated obelisk and an earth mother goddess were symbols that would make any heathen cheer for this miracle. The church had withstood the attack from the unrighteous.

The photos of the Virgin relic in the hands of the hero made the front page of each of the Rio Grande Valley newspapers. Herbert Pike’s name was listed only in the obituaries as having died suddenly.

2

THEATER OF THE ABSURD

As a token representative from Harkin’s department store, Reginald Osteen Swain dressed solemnly for the funeral. He

selected a dark charcoal raw silk suit and a deco-design silk tie. His status demanded not to be out dressed. The thought would be absurd.

The funeral was more than an obligation; it was a day off, conveying to James Harkin that it was a civic duty to appear that the store was concerned. Osteen made James go to the burned shrine. The owner had to give up golf for the day to be photographed giving a check to the Bishop. The donation was tax deductible. It would be less than he would loose playing poker at the nineteenth hole. That money was not directly tax deductible.

Osteen would pick up his girlfriend, Lillian, in her car on the way. Her cousin had married the airplane driver who destroyed the Shrine. He actually had a hand in hiring the man to work at Harkin’s. It was a favor to Lillian. The gesture helped keep her brother, the cop, off of his case. Herbert Pike would have never made the transition to the true oldest profession, retail. Calvin got some of it right, possessions make people happy. Having things was God’s reward. Interesting how many people avoid retail, like Herbert Pike. Some people are worth keeping but others are not worth preserving in any form.

Herbert Pike would not start to work at Harkin’s on Monday. Osteen knew that the rural Pike would have failed on the road of decorative arts. These items were less pretentiously known at other stores as lamps, pictures and thing you had to dust. Obviously there would be few attending Herbert Pike’s last touch and go.

The religious ceremony would be at an Assembly of God church on the edge of town where Osteen would not be caught alive or dead. Tucked in with the mesquite trees garnished with picnic tables, the church sprawled on the fringe of the city. To Osteen, churches were pageants celebrating local folklore with shill vendors.

In the history of the world religions, god was a by-product of selling. Religion was moved and established as an exclusive club by traders. Catholics in Nagasaki, Moslems in Indonesia, Jews in China were part of the secret exclusive club that ran the world sense the beginning. Osteen’s mentor Abbot Caller in New York taught him the retail secrets. Osteen was going to see how well the church today applied the principals.

Before the car stopped Lillian was out of the front door of her house. I am honored that you made it on time, Lillian opened the passenger door.

I knew death could wait for no man, but I’m assured that I can be a little late except for you Lillian. Osteen gave her a peck on the cheek.

Lillian was not sure that was a compliment, Won’t Harkin’s miss you today? The Catholic Church would not bury Herbert no matter how much Brenda asked for the exception. This was a suicide and into a Catholic Shrine. Herbert’s new religion had no problem with the service after the price was agreed to. I can’t believe that the family’s insurance money had to go for a service. It wasn’t cheap either.

Osteen mentioned that, Even dirt is not cheap. As for Harkin’s, missing me, not much, but now and again the grandiose needs to know how seldom the store works right with out me. I can translate Harkin’s words so others can do as instructed. Osteen drove toward the edge of town.

Lillian had never noticed this place before. Though it was on the way to work, it was as discernable as a junkyard.

Osteen’s mind wondered as he observed the building in structural form. This religious institution was no longer mobile but the building was still a cross between circus and revival tent. The structure had tilt-up-walls like the new Harkin’s store. The out side was textured with stucco in the front but shifted to painted fiberboard to enclose the sanctuary. It was a religious factory. It changed Bible stories to a simpler form. No complicated Father, Son and Holy Ghost to merge into one. A simple sales pitch sells better. The message to people seeking a place in this world was, drop what you are doing and bring your money to me. There was little apple pie at the local homes. This Assembly of God sold it in the sky. The sweet rich word food call was attractive to the dismal and dissociated population languishing in poverty.

Lillian wondered what had seduced these poor souls away from the true church.

This must be the place, Osteen pulled the car into the parking lot. A fast food advertising marquee marked the entrance, displaying an illuminated plastic word messages to solicit patrons to the church driveway. Throw your soul to the Savior was the present enticement. The market place of salvation was on a freeway, which was under general construction. Roadwork churned the dusty ground to cover the church lawn grass and picnic area next to the above ground swimming pool.

If I knew the place was going to be this dirty, I would have worn a lesser suit. Osteen observed as he brought Lillian’s car to a halt. A large pickup truck bounced to a stop causing the parking lot’s crushed caliche to raise a layer of white dirt coating the cars. The truck had a dented white body with a brown hood. The truck’s front had large cattle horns for a hood ornament. From the trailer hitch swung two large balls in a stretched canvas bag. An iron s hook allowed the scrotum bag to swing to and fro under the bumper at the stop. The big bumper pickup was in disguise for the bull pasture. On the road, the vehicle was vulgar, in the field it blended.

Osteen pointed the sight out to Lillian as he opened her car door, Does he think a trailer hitch is a penis? Osteen thought the truck was a typical border curiosity exposing male insecurity. Osteen thought a stylized penis and balls pendant would be a good jewelry item. He looked at the top of the church and the neon cross. It had already been done.

The truck door popped open. Out whipped a diminutive man with a big black mustache and rolled brim straw hat. He strutted in cowboy boots pants legs stuffed in to show the colorful ostrich leather. The wife exited the passenger door. She herded him to the church like the bovine from her pasture. Lillian watched the woman round up her stray; There are no people like this at the Catholic Church.

Osteen, ever the consummate gentleman assisted Lillian from the car. She put her gloved hand on his arm to steady her as he high-heeled strapped shoes slipped on the gravel. The arm hold balanced her unsteady footing. Short stops made the pause for arriving cars. At the entrance, swinging glass double doors conveyed an auditorium impression. The bulletin board sitting on a tripod by the front proclaimed, Welcome all disciples. Osteen curiously looked around the large hall. It was practical and cheap, a workspace for shearing sheep. It lacked the grandeur of high-priced retail.

Sticky nametags waited at a small table requesting name, address and home phone numbers of guests and a sign in guest book. White stickers identified parishioners and pink labeled visitors. Lillian wrote out Reginald Osteen Swain on a pink label. She turned to place it on his lapel.

Osteen blocked her move; he took the tag and folded it together, placing it in the trash. What the hell are you doing? This is a silk suit. These people are not Harkin’s customers and have no need to know who I am. Ruin the suit; I don’t think that will happen. This church housed too many poor and uncultured people for him to be identified to them.

The same thought registered with Lillian and she pitched her tag too. Returning to the register book, she changed her address and phone number. She remembered her father’s words Never make your identity to idiots.

Religious services were set up for pre-sales entertainment in the semi-round. Pews faced the dais where the powder blue suited leader would stand and pronounce the holy words committing Herbert Pike’s soul to God. To the left was a band enclosure with trap drum set, large amplifiers and speakers for a live performance. Directly behind the band equipment was the disc-jockey booth manned by a teenage operator. The Plexiglas front of the sound room had large painted letters, Jesus is alive. Today the band was not live. The sound operator turned up the volume on the canned music awaiting the preacher’s grand entrance.

A Hispanic man with long bleached blond hair entered stage right, holding his hands in an uplifting gesture. Except for the suit, this was Walt Disney’s Fantasia from the 1940’s. The sound booth took the cue to reduce the overture and bring up the anthem.

Everyone stood for the preacher’s funeral opening remarks: Herbert Pike will rise to heaven on the flame of God. The text statements representing the Maccabees in a murder suicide was appropriate for the funeral.

Osteen started his mumbling side commentary on the holy words. Sure if someone lit one of his farts.

The preacher then moved to his first request for financial support. All giving words are sacred as Herbert Pike has given his life to the Lord. The first hymn began, led by a large loud woman. The congregation mumbled words looking for the words in the songbook. They were trying to singing along but Osteen did not bother.

Pulling his suite coat straight, he looked around the building as if casing the layout. Osteen was figuring out merchandizing function. Setting in retail is important. As a merchant, he thought this could have been designed by one of Harkin’s window dressers. To the far left were two doublewide glass garage doors. These had a duel purpose for an efficient use of money. The first use was to bring props and band equipment close to the sanctuary and alter. The other function was to make access to the above ground pool beyond the doors for baptisms on the first Sunday of each month. An outdoor barbecue pit was used honoring Abel’s gift to God following the pool dunking. The double garage doors were labeled, Salvation Exit which is better than calling them garage doors to the congregation. The doors were a symbolic traveling through the birth canal in a rebirth in Christ as a born again Christian. Drop phrases abounded in sales pitch presentation. The womb walls were framed in sheetrock flocked and blown. These panels were topped with fiberglass squares colored by children and placed in a suspended ceiling track holder. Child innocence and believability was part of structure.

In the great hall gonfalon flags of religious symbols fluttering down and moved to the breezes of the air-conditioning vents. It resembled elaborate semaphores or flag waving and signaling machine. This was Renaissance art as done by a child. Osteen was mesmerized. Flags fluttered. Is not movement amazing, men need the animation to attract the eye? Swain’s were visual people with pretentious imagination.

As a child, he watched the electric trains in the toy store in the small Indiana town he grew up in. The preacher and all the commotion around the funeral were just background traffic on his childhood memory main street.

The reverend introduced his wife Dolores the prima donna of song. The name Dolores seemed associated with pain by sight and sound. The preacher offered little relief as he started the memorial service. The Bible says you need to give ten percent to the Lord, a friend, that monetary sum is ten percent of gross, not net. If any of you are having trouble figuring the numbers, Dolores will help you after the service. His wife may not have been able to count calories, but she could move the decimal point over one space on a pay stub. She appeared to have a long-term relationship with gross, Osteen thought.

Over the next hour the preacher asked for money and proselytized instead of presenting a funeral service. This was the classic bait and switch. Alms were solicited around breaks where, Little Jake, a six-year-old boy dressed as a midget aluminum siding salesman, will take testimony. Osteen ignored the collection plate passing it, without adding or subtracting from the contents.

The preacher called to his personal favorite religious figure, John the Revelator Osteen leaned over to whisper to Lillian, Is that not the same John that went through detox at Athens general? They let him out to write? John the Revelator, what a handle. His sarcasm offended the ears and elicited the frowns of the people next to them.

Lillian stuck a finger in Osteen’s ribs, Don’t embarrass me.

Up front, the preacher demanded, Come down and give your life to Christ. I will place my hand on your head in consecration. The preacher had called for the guest to come kneel before his righteous touch. This call was as consuming. No pink tags came forward. The same white tags repeated the calling as they did each week.

You know touching is a reassuring mechanism to clench the sale. Osteen placed his hand inside his jacket to cover his ribs.

The conclusion was a paean sung by Delores, the portly singing star. She had been blessed with voice along with the call to be a preacher’s wife. Her range of trills and quavers expanded the monotone music. She clutched a handkerchief to her ample breast and dabbed mascara-bleeding eyes. Her closing act was to retreat backward in step as her husband advanced to greet the crowd.

Lillian jarred Osteen from his reveries as the crowd started to move toward the exits. The service was over and the hallucinogenic word-drugs were suspended. The circus was closing its doors to make way to the graveyard for the second act.

Lillian wrung her hands and kept her head bowed. She gritted her teeth in contempt as if she was trying not to bite her tongue and scream. This service was an offence to human dignity.

Lillian approached Brenda and offered condolences to her cousin and children after the services.

The Pike family appeared to be relieved that Herbert would no longer be a trial and embarrassment in their lives. Brenda looked down at her gloves; I guess the goggled Plymouth driver will not bring us ridicule and obnoxious contempt around town any more. His wife’s love had been lost long ago, along with the money Herbert used on his delusions.

Lillian offered Brenda an excuse for not continuing to the next show, We will not be attending the graveside service as Osteen has to return to the store.

Brenda nodded, probably wishing she could find a reason not to lead the parade to the headstone garden. She had to look sad but she was really angry.

Walking through the parking lot, Osteen looked back at the Hereford colored truck with balls. It had been steered while the owner was getting religion and honoring the dead. The huevos were gone. The truck had been castrated in plain daylight. Any unusual item would be stolen if left unattended along the border. Now a Cowboy Cadillac had been emasculated.

As Osteen opened the car door, Lillian burst out after an hour of constraining her dismay, We are not going to the graveside ceremonies. This is as much as I can take. Let’s go to my house. These people are scummy.

Driving back to the highway, Osteen reflected, Lillian did not get the merchandizing review. The presentation had all the elements of a good sales pitch with a little music, hard words and then comic relief. The setting put the sucker in surreal credible frame of mind. It worked. He could employ some of the presentation he observed. He would write Abbot Caller about the presentation. When the preacher made the pitch, the presentation moved to the tense high point, the Leopold Stokowski imitator moved to rely on the fat singer, then on to the comic relief dwarf. The three-part presentation spaced so as not to loose attention.

Osteen secured Herbert’s employment at Harkin’s with some reluctance. Mr. Pike appeared too weird to have credibility. The car he drove was too ugly to steal even in Donna. All he needed to do was be a clerk and show up to work on time. He would never be an Abbot disciple. Clerks never stayed too long at Harkin’s and Osteen had obligated Lillian to the kindness of a job request. Herbert’s job was a plus on Lillian’s make amends tally. I hired him just for you.

What are you talking about? Lillian confronted Osteen, I thought you could use him. He spoke Spanish, as much as Brenda could teach him, Harkin’s is opening the new store at the mall. He might not have made much, but he would have been out of the house and not spending money trying to imitate John Wayne in a World War II movie.

As a polite escort, Osteen placed his hums and yes’s in the correct places in Lillian’s story, then he broke in. Then this is why you ask me to find him a job at Harkin’s. I went out on a limb; he had no idea what decorative arts were. You will have to make it up to me by doing all the work in bed. I want to be catered to. Do you have a bottle of wine or do we need to stop so you can get a bottle? Osteen was not going to make love without refreshment.

Lillian put her hand on the back of Osteen’s neck, As to the bed, I might have a special surprise for you. You know how much I like chocolate and the wine is cooling.

Mr. Swain considered Lillian’s companionship a good ride, an equivalent to up-scale German four-door sedan. She was a back-up car when he was alone with nothing new to drive. Osteen liked her more than most of his lady friends, but she was not the thrill that came with unbridled pole dancers; however those women could not accompany him in public, let alone attend a church in daylight.

Osteen liked Lillian’s taste for chocolate as he contributed, Funerals make me feel amorous. There must be a connection between coming and going.

Lillian smiled and looked out the car window. She could also do with close, warm touch after listening to that preacher. She would not have to scream out her anger now. Osteen, you have the rest of the day off?

The dirt of the new store worksite, without air-conditioning in suffering summer months, could be avoided one more day this week. Lillian you know funerals take all day. I hope your thermostat is turned down.

The setting sun cast shadows through the Venetian blinds and on the ceiling fan blades. The fan blade cast the moving light in a disco dance floor effect around the room. The bedroom stank of sex and sweat. With some curiosity Lillian asked, Osteen. I’m Catholic; what are you?

Osteen had a rehearsed answer that he had used many times. I am a member of the First Church of Heathen Retailers. Our symbol is a circumcised cock. A ruffled edge dick is not affiliated with worship except with pre-Colombian Mexican god Quetzalcoatl. I supply human needs. Osteen thought the connection between a feathered serpent god and his privates was a good image. Here was a good point to espouse the Retail Apostle’s Creed and talk about his purpose, Lillian did you notice the building was designed to be awe inspiring. It’s too cheap to work for me, but if the customer is overwhelmed by structure, the sales pitch is easier. Why do you think the church spent so many years and so much money on the Gothic cathedrals? This may be why Pike crashed the plane into the shrine. It competed with his anti-retail religious ideas.

Why are you bringing up that demented man?

Lillian, we are we not talking about Pike but retail sales through pitch, timing and atmosphere. Osteen knew when he took the conversation to promotion of goods, women’s eyes glazed over. The idea that promotes