Ordained Irreverence

by McMillian Moody

  The Homemade Pie

  I splurged. On my own dime, I had a nameplate made for my office/closet door. With a little effort, I chiseled off the old Utilities/Miscellaneous sign and mounted mine in its place. The nameplate was gold with black letters: Elmo Jenkins – Staff Intern. I had to admit it was beautiful. Immediately I felt more significant. Someone important once said, “It’s the small things that count.” With my minuscule intern’s salary, the small things were the only things that counted. Stepping back into the hall admiring my new nameplate, I had a thought. Since they assigned me this rat hole for an office, I’m going to do the best I can to make it special. I’ll show ’em some creativity!

  To help kick off my renovation program, I enlisted Dunston Jones. Dunston was an old black janitor who had been on the maintenance staff of First Church since way before I was born. Most places would have already put an old guy like Dunston out to pasture. First Church had recently hired an independent cleaning service, but they let Dunston stay on part-time to take care of odds and ends.

  Dunston liked me. Most folks at the church paid little if any attention to Dunston, but I would always ask him how he was doing, and he would always respond, “Fine-’n-you?” He would come by my closet, uh, my office and tell me colorful stories about fishing. Fishing was his passion. He prided himself as being an expert angler. He had even invented his own special bait and fishing techniques. He once told me his secret to catching The Big Fish. “You gotta hide from ‘em. Git y’seff way down low on the bank, or better yet, behind a rock or a tree.” He illustrated this for me by crouching behind my table. I would laugh until I cried, but I did take careful notes.

  I’d always wanted to be good at fishing, but the truth is I stunk at it. My problem? I couldn’t catch any fish. I had vivid memories from a church fishing tournament back home. The whole experience had been an absolute debacle for me from start to finish. I’d borrowed a friend’s boat. As I was pulling it out into the lake, the motor jumped off the back of the boat and sank in twelve feet of murky water. We never found it. Cha-ching.

  With my boat out of commission, I hopped in with the best angler in the tourney and figured this was the day I would actually catch a fish. We fished all morning, and neither one of us had so much as a nibble. Not even close. To add insult to injury, about noon (the worst time of day for fishing), a boat-load of old local guys pulled up and anchored next to us. They began catching fish, one right after another, using cane poles and bobbers. As I sat there watching them haul in the big ones, I decided it was time to find another hobby.

  Dunston was more than just my fishing tutor. He was also my office renovation supply-man extraordinaire. That awful view of the dumpster right outside my window? He found a curtain from an unused Sunday school classroom and hung it for me. My door, so badly in need of paint? He located some leftover paint in a storage closet. I may not be a seafoam green kind of guy, but it was a marked improvement. He scrounged up an old area rug that still looked pretty good. It covers most of my tile floor. Later, he showed up with two nice office chairs for any visitors I might have. I have no idea where he got them, and I decided not to ask. Finally, since I didn’t have an office phone, he procured an old-school two-way wireless office intercom for me. Those small speaker-type boxes used back in the ‘70s. He put one on my office table and the other on Adrianne’s desk on the fifth floor, so she could contact me whenever needed. This saved me tons of transit time and cell phone minutes. Plus, it came with a special bonus feature enabling me to keep up to date on the latest church gossip. By simply tweaking the channel knob on Sunday mornings, I could tune in the baby monitors installed in the nursery. I could hear every juicy tidbit shared amongst the volunteers rocking those babies. If someone at First Church got a tummy tuck, I knew all about it.

  In no time, my office renovation was complete. Soon thereafter, Miss Figghie called me on the intercom. “Mr. Jenkins?” There was a lot of static so I adjusted the channel knob.

  “Mr. Jenkins?” she repeated.

  “Yes, Miss Figghie,” I answered in my best pastoral voice.

  “Mr. Jenkins, Pastor Applebee has requested that you make a visit out to see Erlene Markham at her home, and he wants you to take one of the other staff guys along with you.”

  “What time? And what is the purpose of the visit?”

  “Noon today. Erlene is the head of our altar counseling room. She’s requested a visit, but Pastor Applebee can’t go so he’s sending you to represent him. She lives at 2346 Oakwood Lane. And, oh yes—Erlene will be providing lunch.”

  I wrote down the address. “Anything else I need to know?”

  She paused. “He did say to watch what you eat.”

  I laughed. “Thank you, Miss Figghie. Over and out.” I clicked off the intercom.

  Okay, they’re sending little ol’ Elmo Jenkins out on an official church visit. It wasn’t lunch with the Pope, but it was a start. Papal visits would have to come later.

  Since I needed a visitation partner, I invited Thurm Wilson. He wasn’t interested until I mentioned the free home-cooked meal. Since it was almost lunchtime, we jumped in my car and headed over toward Oakwood Lane.

  Thurm eased down in my passenger seat and closed his eyes. “So who are we going to visit?”

  “Her name is Erlene Markham. Do you know anything about her?”

  Without changing position or opening his eyes, he simply said, “Oh yeah, I know Mrs. Markham.” Then he laughed quietly to himself.

  “All right, what’s the deal here? What am I getting into?”

  Thurm sat up. “You’ve been in the Sunday morning worship service, right?”

  “Yeah, sure. Of course.”

  “You know at the end of the service when folks come forward to make a decision and Dr. Jorgensen directs them to the counseling room? That little old lady in those funky looking dresses, holding open the door? That’s Erlene Markham.”

  “Oh, that lady. I’ve heard some wild stories about her.”

  “They’re all true and more. Believe me.” Thurm laughed out loud.

  “Now I see why Applebee sent me on this visit.” I wasn’t laughing.

  Thurm gave me the whole story. Erlene and her late husband Howard had been missionaries overseas for years. After retirement, they moved back here and got actively involved at First Church. Howard catalogued and archived all the filmstrips used throughout the Sunday school. He kept them in a special media room up on the fourth floor. One day he sat down for a break and never got up. Died right there in the media room.

  “Jeez, it sure seems like a lot of people drop dead inside those church buildings. Have they ever checked for asbestos?” I coughed. Power of suggestion, I suppose.

  “It’s not a burning priority.” Thurm laughed at his own failed attempt at humor.

  “About Erlene?” I asked, desperate for more information before our visit.

  Thurm smiled. “Erlene Markham is one special lady, but a little strange. I think she may have the beginnings of Alzheimer’s. She’s been in charge of the altar counseling room for several years now. She’s good at it, very energetic, very knowledgeable about the Bible, and very persuasive. Erlene’s a tiny thing, only about five feet tall and well into her eighties, but she’s in much better shape than I am. She’d run circles around you.”

  “I’m not as slow as I look,” I fired back. “I’m in great shape—tight abs, firm glutes.”

  “Anyway,” he continued, “several times a year she’ll invite a staff member over to her house for lunch. More to socialize than anything else I suspect. She does have one very peculiar habit, though. She loves to tell off-color jokes. And oh yes, she’s nearly blind.”

  “A small, nearsighted, crazed, perverted, senile, ex-missionary, and I have to go into her house and eat her food,” I commented as we pulled into her driveway. “Why do I feel like I’m on a reality TV show? Visitation Fear Factor.”

  We rang the bell and when she opened the door, Thurm’s vivid d
escription of this little senior adult lady was instantly validated. She greeted us in a bright purple and orange house dress. She had short-cropped silver hair with bangs and a bad overbite. Or maybe she was wearing her dead husband’s false teeth by mistake. I immediately thanked God that Thurm had come along.

  I decided to be cute. “Good morning, Mrs. Markham. I’m Elmo Jenkins and this is my pool boy, Thurm.”

  Throwing her head back, she laughed a deep guttural laugh. With a smoker’s voice, she wheezed, “I know who you boys are. Please come in.”

  I held the door for Thurm, and he elbowed me in the ribs as he stepped by me. Thick ornate velvet drapes covered most of the windows, making her house dark. We passed lots of French provincial furniture with a few Oriental pieces mixed in as we followed her into her dining room. She had set the table for three.

  We hadn’t even taken our seats before she started right in. “Tell me, Mr. Jenkins, how do you like being on the staff of our little church?”

  “It’s a privilege, Mrs. Markham.”

  “Please call me Erlene if you would, or Miss Erlene if that’s more comfortable.”

  “Miss Erlene, Thurm here tells me you’re a retired missionary, and now you give leadership to our altar counseling ministry.”

  She gave us a toothy smile. “I was, and I am. I’ve been serving our Lord for almost eighty years and will for the next eighty.”

  “That’s great!” I looked at Thurm with wide eyes. “I understand you wanted to share some church ministry business with us today. Is that correct?”

  Studying me for a moment, she looked me right in the eye. “You’re new at this, aren’t you?”

  I blushed. I know I did. “Wh-what, uh, what do you mean?”

  “The other staff members always want to eat first and then get down to business. But not you. You want to talk business first. I like that. Okay, business before food. But first you must let me tell you a joke.”

  Oh God, no! He answered my prayer as my cell phone went off. “Please excuse me,” I said as I stepped into her living room. “Now Thurm, he loves a good joke!” I hollered over my shoulder.

  The call was from my advisor’s office at Harvest Morgan Seminary needing some additional information about my internship. They also wanted to confirm my weekly meeting with my advisor, Dr. Auguste De Villa. Dr. DV and Erlene would get along great—talk about crazy love. The call only lasted a couple of minutes. As I walked back into the dining room Erlene was finishing her joke.

  “Then the farmer said, ‘but I thought she was your sister!” Erlene croaked, breaking into boisterous laughter.

  I glanced at Thurm, his face beet red, his eyes bugging out.

  “That must have been some joke,” I quipped.

  “Would you like me to tell it again?” she grinned.

  “No need.” I smiled at Thurm trying to compose himself. “I’ll get Thurm to tell me on the drive back to the church.”

  We discussed her church concerns. She stressed the need for more altar counselors, particularly more women and youth. Then she served a delicious lunch she’d picked up at a local delicatessen. She apologized for the store-bought food, explaining she found it difficult to cook these days due to her poor eyesight.

  “But I didn’t want to totally disappoint you, so I made you my famous peanut butter pie! Even rolled my own crust.”

  My first bite tasted fabulous. I love homemade pies. I was about to take my second bite when I noticed Thurm making small gestures with his fork, pointing at the crust of his pie. When Miss Erlene turned to ask Thurm a question about his youth ministry, I inspected my own pie crust.

  When what to my wondering eyes should appear,

  but cockroaches rolled into the crust, oh dear.

  I almost gagged. The dead bugs were rolled flat, right into the pie crust. Obviously, Erlene couldn’t see well enough to notice these crunchy additions to her pie. What was I going to do with the rest of my piece? Smashing it a bit, I moved it around the plate then covered it with my napkin.

  We thanked Erlene for inviting us over. She gave us both a big hug and kiss on the cheek, then we escaped with our lives to my car. On the way back to the church, all we could do was laugh about the visit, but Thurm wouldn’t tell me her joke. He swore never to repeat that joke to anyone for any reason. Overall, as my first official visit, I thought it had gone well.

  Now all I had to do was deliver the piece of peanut butter pie she had insisted we take back for Tom Applebee.

  I smiled to myself.

  The Function

  Singles parties. We’ve all seen them graphically portrayed on television. Beautiful people dancing everywhere. Loud, rowdy music with a gyrating beat. Adult beverages flowing freely. Laser lights flashing through dry-ice smoke. The entire room moves to the music; the noise level overwhelming.

  Freeze-frame that picture.

  Now remove the loud rowdy music, the liquor, the flashing lights, the dry ice, the dancing, and the beautiful people. What you have left is a Friday night Singles Function meeting in the First Church Fellowship Hall.

  A couple of days ago, Singles pastor Louis Estrada slid into my office (now known as The Closet) and handed me a flyer for an upcoming First Church Singles Function for twenty-something’s. You would like to think this meant for single men and single women in their twenties, but such is not the case. In reality, most of the women attending will indeed be in their twenties, but at least half of the guys will be over forty. I have a theory that the older guys get a pass because they usually drive nicer cars and wear expensive clothes.

  Church Singles functions are a genre unique unto themselves. Whereas the popular singles parties that take place nightly in clubs across the country tend to resemble more of a meat market, a better analogy for a church Singles function would be a garage sale. Some new items, some used items—all looking for a new home and everything priced to move. It’s just the way God made us. We’re all looking for that special person to share our life with.

  Right?

  I arrived at Friday night’s Singles function on time, but to be honest, I felt completely out of my comfort zone. First, I’ve never done really well with the ladies. Perhaps I mentioned that before? Second, I’d been there all of fifteen minutes when I spilled guacamole on my white shirt. It looked like I had a bad cold and sneezed green yuck on myself. Great.

  In my head, I imagined how this was going to play out.

  To pretty girl: Hi there, my name is Elmo Jenkins. ¿Como se llama?

  Pretty girl: Sorry, no hablo español, and what’s that green crap on your shirt?

  Fortunately, I remembered I had a sports jacket in The Closet, and after a quick round trip, the guacamole stain was safely sequestered out of sight.

  After a cursory scan, I determined I knew about half the people in the room. Some were staff members like Juliann Roth, the First Church receptionist, and Bonnie St. Hiliare, Louis Estrada’s secretary. As far as potential girlfriends go, I didn’t stand much of a chance with either of these ladies. Juliann was way, way out of my league. I was actually surprised she was even there. She’s drop-dead beautiful, though definitely not a candidate for a rocket science government grant. Bonnie was attractive and very witty, but she was several years older than me. I saw her as fodder for one of the older guys wearing the $1000 leather jackets.

  Since we work together, I figured a little small talk couldn’t hurt. Juliann and Bonnie were chatting by the buffet table. Pretending to look over the food, I casually approached them. I couldn’t help thinking—why are singles always standing and talking? Why don’t they ever sit down? What does this mean?

  I picked up a plate, staying far, far away from the guacamole bowl, and ended up right next to the girls, all the while feigning that I hadn’t noticed them there. I might have mentioned earlier I’m not particularly good at this party stuff.

  “Hey Elmo,” Bonnie said, breaking the ice. “Isn’t it kind of warm in here for a wool sports coat?”

&n
bsp; Caught off guard, I’m quite sure I blushed. “Well, I, uh . . . well, you see, um—”

  “I think it looks nice.” Juliann said, coming to my rescue.

  “Thanks,” I said, regrouping. “Can you all keep a secret—you know, between staff members?”

  Serious, concerned expressions crossed their faces. “Sure Elmo, what is it?” Bonnie asked.

  I leaned in to whisper. “The reason I’m wearing this very hot jacket is because . . .” I paused for effect. “It’s because I spilled guacamole on my shirt.” Then, as if revealing a hidden gunshot wound, I slowly opened my coat.

  Juliann sighed and slapped me on the shoulder. “I thought it was something serious, silly.”

  I smiled. “No, really, it’s just that I’m not used to eating inside.”

  They both laughed. For me, this was a good start. A very good start.

  Still, it happened. That old, familiar, awkward pause. When three adults mildly acquainted, stand there trying to think of something interesting to say.

  I fearfully jumped back in. “Do you gals come to these gatherings often?”

  Gals? Gatherings? Where did that come from?

  “I’ve been coming a lot lately. I’m kind of between boyfriends,” Juliann whispered, giggling.

  I was beginning to get a read on Juliann. Like one of those model homes on the cover of Better Homes & Gardens, she was breathtakingly beautiful on the outside, but quite vacant on the inside. Though she’s a brunette, I couldn’t help stealing a quick look for blonde roots.

  Bonnie took her turn. “As Louis’s secretary, I’m obligated to be here and make sure all the bases are covered. I’m really not much into the singles scene.

  “Me neither,” I said, half-lying. “However, I’d like to get to know some more people my age here at the church.”