Thursday, June 25, 2015

Epilogue: Friday Night
On a cool night in June, my wife and I sat at a picnic table, under an enormous white tent covering most of the Lutheran Church’s parking lot.  Between us on a grease-stained plate lay a single french fry, the sole survivor of a large order with cheese and bacon bits.  I smiled at my bride as I stood and held out my hand.

We held hands as we walked across the adjacent parking lot to the Catholic school.  Bending down to peer through the basement windows, we saw Father Tim calling numbers for the weekly bingo game.  A few middle-aged women sitting at a front table played twenty or more bingo cards each.  They only looked up to yell “Bingo!” or cast annoyed glances at young people and talkers.  Most of the other sixty or so people in the room played a single card.  Even with a microphone, Fr. Tim had to yell to be heard over their conversations and laughter.

“Bingo or pie?” I asked my wife. 

“It looks like a fun crowd, but I don’t see anyone we know,” she said. “Let’s split a slice of pie and get a whole one for the road.”  I suggested we split a whole pie and get a slice for the road, but I agreed to her plan.   We walked two blocks to the First Baptist Church for pie. 

First Baptist’s old minister had retired shortly after our boys played his church’s team for the championship. The new minister - a tall, thin, young man with sandy hair - sat on a folding chair behind one of about two dozen tables under another white tent.  His table was loaded down with pies of every kind. Several elderly couples sipped coffee as they shared remembrances at a nearby table.  A man in a wheelchair sat smiling as he faced the setting sun, his eyes closed, one hand keeping his dog from getting at the plate on his lap. A group of young boys gathered around a laptop, cheering on older boy playing a computer game.

The young clergyman bounced up as we approached. “Don’t you love Friday nights?” he asked, smiling from ear to ear and shaking my hand.  I did.  We ordered an apple pie and a slice of berry.  As he gave me my change he looked around and said, “We are truly blessed.”

Later that night Fr. Tim was walking to the bank to use the night deposit box.  A dope-sick twenty-five year old Yale dropout stabbed him for the bingo money.  Father Tim bled out on the concrete steps in back of the bank.  The man got the death penalty. Friday night was never the same.  People felt uneasy walking the two blocks to the Baptist Church. They began getting food to go from the Lutheran Church, until they stopped getting food there altogether.  Friday night was dead in two years.

Today I will remember - drugs kill the best of times and the best of us.

Life on Life’s Terms II © 2015 by Ken Montrose
Other publications available at: http://www.amazon.com/Ken-Montrose/e/B001K8MG0S


(Just a reminder: LOLT II is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to anyone you might know is purely coincidental.)

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