The 41st Sermon

By Randy Attwood

When a 45-year-old Episcopal priest, suffering from mid-life and mid-faith crisis, gets involved in a phony kidnapping scheme the result is a supercharged novel of sex, payback for decades-old double-dealing, and despair, which only God can cure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randy Attwood
• Release date: Nov 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386640714

Randy Attwood

I grew up on the grounds of a Kansas insane asylum where my father was a dentist. I attended the University of Kansas during the troubled 1960s getting a degree in art history. After stints writing and teaching in Italy and Japan I had a 16-year career in newspapers as reporter, editor and column writer winning major awards in all categories. I turned to health care public relations serving as director of University Relations at KU Medical Center. I finished my career as media relations officer of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Now retired, I am marketing the fiction I've written over all those years. And creating more.

Book preview

Chapter 1: MISERERE

The Volvo in the closed garage purred quietly as it exhaled the gas that Jim Garrison inhaled. He had turned on the television in his shop area to mask the noise of the car and it brought to him the sounds of Monday Night Football. He couldn't remember who was playing. It was wonderful to feel such peace. His daughter would be better off without him, and he thought of her sweet face as she slept in her bedroom the floor above him. His wife June would remarry; this time to a real man so his daughter could have a real man, too, for a father. They both deserve that. And Richard will find someone new. Too bad I can't leave Richard a note. No notes. No regrets. What kind of eulogy will Father Talley give? Is there a standard form in the Book of Common Prayer for suicides? It has formulas for everything else. Jim could see June and Richard, and Richard's wife Molly, all sitting together in the church at the funeral for him. It will be sad for all of them. Maybe not for Molly. No, she was never sad about anything. Why on earth had she tried to seduce me that day? I couldn't have been physically attractive to her. Maybe she just wanted to see if she could make me smile. I'm smiling now. This is so peaceful. He took a deep breath and let out a sigh. I am starting to feel sleepy. His Volvo burned clean. The engine had just been tuned, so there was little exhaust smoke gathering in the garage. He took another deep breath. The noise of the football game was louder, someone had just scored a touchdown. Was Richard watching the game now, he wondered. Probably. Maybe later Richard will think of what he was doing when I went to sleep. Jim Garrison laid his body across the front seat, because he was feeling faint. He felt closer to Richard, knowing at this moment they were both hearing the same football game and Frank Gifford was announcing: It's all tied up!

He then felt the depression lift from him as the morning fog did when he and Richard teed off early on Saturday mornings at the club. He was swinging his driver, loving the feel of it, effortlessly moving the club head through the air to hit the ball, following through to watch it soar up into the lifting fog. Far, far up, never curving down to earth, but ever ascending on its way into the oblivion of the sky.

Chapter 2: INTROITUS

At seven-thirty on a fresh, cool Monday morning in the forty-fifth spring of his life, under a sky the blue of which General Motors used for its 1957 Chevrolet, the Rev. Christopher Talley looked into the trunk of his BMW, aimed his thick, index finger at the objects stored neatly away, and stuck up his thumb.

Bang, he said, as he pointed his finger at the portable typewriter, depressed his thumb, and heard the knuckle crack. He shifted to take aim at a stack of reference books, and then in rapid order went bang, bang, bang, bang, at the dictionary, the thesaurus, the Bible, and the Book of Common Prayer. Father Talley aimed the finger next at the large, expandable file and, with the loudest mental bang of them all, blasted that well-worn cardboard structure and all of the pieces of paper the damn thing contained. He thought about pointing the finger at his own head, but reached down instead to caress the fly rod case, pat the tackle box, and run his hand across the stack of journals on studies into ancient Greece he had bound together with cord. He closed the trunk lid, listening to its satisfyingly solid click.

The back seat was clean. Everything he needed was in the trunk. He hated traveling with his wife, Kathryn, because she had to hang clothes in the back seat. She seemed to have a phobia about wrinkles. He preferred to travel with the gray inside of the car as clean as the day he bought it. Except, of course, for the stainless-steel Coleman thermos and his coffee cup.

He looked up. Phosphenes danced in the pale-blue sky the way they did when he closed his eyes. Do people look up at the sky so much because they are curious about the weather, or because they are looking hoping to see God up there? Maybe they looked up in fear, afraid that God was up there looking down and seeing everything they did. Maybe we're damned either way. Damned if He isn't up there – damned in the morass of own humanity – and damned if He is up there because we deserve His condemnation.

Father Talley walked through the cool, morning air back into the clean-swept, orderly garage, then opened the door to the kitchen where Kathryn was filling the shining thermos with coffee. The flower-patterned breakfast dishes he hated were stacked in the sink waiting to be washed. He watched black, steaming liquid being poured into the thermos, and was anxious to be on his way.

Have everything, Chris? she asked, as she screwed the lid on the thermos. On the counter sat rows of cinnamon rolls in greased pans, arranged in marching order for the oven. Another procession of baked goods for another bake sale. Churches are run on bake sales and bequests, he remembered his father telling him. You can't ignore either one.

The prospect of the drive beckoned Father Talley. Being away beckoned him. The smell of dough was making him feel nauseous.

All set. I'll call when I get there, he said, trying not to sound too anxious to be on his way: away from her, away from his church, away from God.

Drive carefully, she said and turned so he could peck her pudgy, dough-like cheek and hug the formidable block her body had become. She started to pick small pieces of lint off his jacket. He had to keep himself from slapping away her hands.

You might give June Garrison a call sometime during the week to see if she needs anything, he told her.

Poor creature. It makes me so sad to talk to her. Yes, I'll call. ‘Bye, Dear. Drive carefully.

Leaving the driveway, the BMW purring contentedly under his hands, he did not turn his head to look again at the church as he passed it by. It was his habit not to glance at the massive stone structure when he departed on his yearly sojourn. He thought it bad luck, although he wasn't supposed to believe in luck. Guilt was something else, however. He believed in guilt and knew that was the real reason he didn't like to look at his own church. But then what is guilt other than a kind of bad luck that plagues modern man?

Nor did he glance at the Garrison house two blocks away on the corner as he passed the tri-level structure. Bad luck there, too. Tragic bad luck.

Near the turnoff for the highway he pulled the black BMW to the curb, parked, and reached under his seat to take out the bottle of brandy. He popped the seal and poured some of the golden liquid into the coffee cup and then added coffee. He set the mug, a gift from his secretary on which was printed "agape", back into its snug holder built between the two front seats. He pulled out onto the highway that led out of Kansas City, eased into the traffic flow, and reached for the agape mug. It had been an odd gift for Mary, his secretary, to give him. The gossiping old woman hardly ever shows any feelings of agape. Agape, there was another word Christianity stole from the Greeks and converted into its own use. Agape, Christian love, the highest kind of love. In the early church it referred to the love feast, partaking of the Eucharist. The smell of the brandy and coffee hit his nostrils and calmed his stomach. He took a long sip, leaned back in the driver's seat, set the cruise control and, as open stretches of the country freed his mind, allowed himself for the first time since last year to remember Alicia. The nostalgia was as welcome as the brandy. Maybe this would be the year he would really try to track her down. He even allowed himself to imagine that, having somehow found her telephone number, he would actually call her.

The first part of the four-hour drive buzzed by in a welcome sloughing off pastoral claims against his person. He shed them like dirty clothes dropped into the laundry basket. Even the Garrisons were forgotten. With each sip of coffee and brandy he felt his neck muscles loosen and his face relax, so that when he looked at himself in the rearview mirror a different face stared back at him. It seemed to him a younger face. He wondered what Alicia looked like now. She'd be forty-three. His own wife, Kathryn, was forty-three. Father Talley felt sure Alicia wouldn't have let herself slip so quickly into a tubby middle age. Kathryn once had been a very pretty woman, eager to smile, eager to be happy, but her face had gained weight and passed – it seemed almost overnight – from an alluring innocence to an uninteresting kindliness. Then a weakness for sweets, too many church bake sales and teas, too much eating while chatting happily and doing needlepoint with other women in the church – all that had added more pounds to her chunky frame. Just as well. I am left more to myself. And she's basically a cheerful woman, thank goodness. Agape, Christian love. That's what I feel for her. Why is it that the highest form of love feels so empty?

He glanced again at the rearview mirror and decided his face looked better than it had when he was younger. Lines had given character to its bony, blocky look: serious, deep character. His hair was still thick. He had let it grow long, letting the curls create their own mass of form and personality. He knew he looked good up at the pulpit. He had a scowl that put a vertical crease just above his nose between his eyebrows. It matched the dimple in his chin.

And the good old pulpit hides my paunch. He placed the thermos between his legs, opened the top, poured brandy directly into it, and then that mixture into his agape cup. He drove on, took sips from the cup, and felt his brain begin its own contented purr to match the car's.

Kathryn Talley used the embroidered oven mitten to pull out another tray of baked cinnamon rolls, and felt the hot air of the oven smother her face with the smell of sweet, cooked dough. She sat the tray on the counter and suddenly her cheeks were wet with tears. She realized she felt that piercing of her heart, but again could not determine if the tears caused the feeling or if the feeling caused the tears. At least she knew what to do now. Richard Atkins, her psychiatrist, had helped her that much. She had a routine to follow instead of just sobbing and wondering why she cried; why, for no reason, she just suddenly bawled.

Oh, there's a reason, Kathryn; it's just a matter of finding what it is. Let's see what we know already, he had said six months ago after their first session, and it had given her some reassurance that her decision to seek his help was correct. You only have these crying spells when you're alone; that seems part of the puzzle. Here's what I want you to do each time you have a spell. Go right away to a notebook I'm going to give you and write down the date, time, circumstances, and your thoughts – whatever comes into your head. Then bring the notebook to your sessions and we'll use it as a basis for analysis.

She had worried about going to a psychiatrist who was Chris' parishioner, but she thought Richard Atkins would understand her desire to keep her problem hidden from her husband.

Of course I understand, Richard had told her. He's a busy man with a lot of worries. I don't think this problem of yours is major. And besides, there's a patient-doctor confidence I wouldn't betray.

She dried her cheeks with the heel of her left hand as she wrote in the notebook. The crying spells had started about two years ago. She first noted something was wrong when her stitching became uneven. She would realize that her thoughts had been wandering from her handwork, but she didn't know where they had been. Then, suddenly, the crying had begun. And it only happened when she was alone. With other people around she was perfectly normal: acting and reacting according to their actions and words.

That had been the hardest part of analysis for her, talking about herself. She had thought he would be like a physician, asking pertinent questions about her problem, but mostly he prompted her to talk about herself, something she found embarrassing.

You don't think it's a sin to talk about yourself, do you? he had asked.

Oh no, just silly. I'm so inconsequential.

Why do you think you're inconsequential? You're the only person you have, you know.

He had said that at the end of one of their sessions, so she didn't have to respond to it, didn't have to let him know how terrified she was of that thought. If I'm the only person I have, she reasoned, then I really am alone; and it was only when she was alone that she had her problem, and when she cried she felt... worthless, deserving of being alone. She had written that phrase in her notebook after a crying spell, and he had delved into it.

I fill my days with church work. If I'd had a child, I guess I would have filled my days with it. But Chris can't have children. She had stopped, but he must have sensed she would continue into the area she really felt embarrassed about discussing – their sex life.

After Chris learned from the doctor he couldn't have children, his sperm count is very low, she said, blushing red at the word sperm, we slept less together. His interest in me, that way, seemed to diminish. Her voice had gotten softer and lower. He prompted more information out of her, gently, quietly, until she had told him that her sexual awareness had just become awakened by Chris, but without attention from him had quickly died.

For being honest about this most difficult topic, he rewarded her with some conclusions; presented them to her as though they were surprise gifts:

"Chris is a father figure for you, Kathryn, that's fairly obvious. Your mother died before you reached puberty. You started caring for your father, the vicar, caring for him domestically. Mothers and daughters are natural rivals for the father's affections. How that rivalry plays itself out is a major determining factor in how healthy the whole thing works out. But your rival left the field. You were left alone. There was no contest. No, you had to be the substitute. Your father probably didn't help matters. He sent you to an all-girls’ school. You returned home, started caring for him again, and were well on your way to becoming the spinster daughter caring for the widowed, aging father until Chris happened along and stepped right into the father role. But what you've become now is a spinster caring for the widowed father. You've made Chris the widower not by dying – but certainly by dying sexually, so that all that is left are those domestic duties you performed so admirably for your father and now do for Chris."

She had been stunned by the rightness of his words, wise words that came from such a young face. He couldn't be but thirty. There was a blond handsomeness about him – more cute than handsome – but then also a sternness in the eyes that seemed disgusted with the cuteness of the face that housed them. The perceptive words from that young face had made her cry, too. Cry in his presence. Cry tears that seemed the most honest tears she had cried since her mother had died. Richard had come to her, sat beside her, patted her shoulder as though he were her son, and told her to think about what he had said: that they would discuss it at the next session.

She had left his office building and found a bench to sit on and felt again the rightness of his words. She turned to her right and saw her reflection in the window of the office building, and the fact that she would soon be forty-four slapped her in the face. There was a flap of fat under her chin, and she remembered how apple-cheeked she used to look: but now they were turning into jowls. Her belly felt heavy. All those cookies munched with all her friends from church: friends, she realized now, much older than she was and whom she emulated, and so she started looking older, too. She knew she used to be pretty. She remembered how men used to look at her. It had made her feel giddy and giggly, but she never got past the giggle stage with anyone who had tried to talk to her until Chris. Chris had been quiet and confident. He had earned her father's trust, earned Kathryn's trust, so that at that church picnic, when Chris managed to be alone with her and held her hand, the drew her to him, put his hand under her chin, and raised her face to his, it all had seemed so perfect.

She realized her face had become flushed with the memory and she felt silly. Old, fat women weren't supposed to feel this way. She had a desire not to be old and fat, and into her head came a vision of herself as she should be: forty pounds lighter, attractive again, something done to her hair, something to make the dark brown more alive, skin taut around her face.

And into her mind, too,