The Heretics of St. Possenti

by Rolf Nelson

  Thinking about it, Thomas pointed out the obvious—a consolidation loan at a more reasonable rate.

  “Tried. Can’t get one. No collateral, not a good enough job, debts are not big enough for a bank to go through the paperwork unless they charge almost as much interest as I’m paying now. But I haven’t actually quite lost everything and had it all go to collections, so the charity channels won’t touch it yet either.”

  “Too bad to bail out; too good to write off. Ouch.”

  They kicked ideas around for another half hour, but Thomas and Aaron couldn’t find anything that looked promising. Finally, Aaron had to go. “Hey, man. Thanks for listening. Sorry to be a downer like this, but it’s good to talk to someone that… well, thanks.”

  “No problem. It’s the least I could do. If I think of anything…”

  “You can get my number from John.”

  “I will do that.”

  Thomas shook his hand and watched him go, feeling a bit depressed that he couldn’t do more for the seemingly sincere young man. He sat on a bench with the towel over his neck and prayed silently for a moment.

  “’Scuse me.” A gravelly voice nearby interrupted his thoughts. He looked up, his eyes following the massive legs, hulking body, bulging arms, and thick neck with a bullet-shaped and well-polished head atop it. The guy had to weigh at least three hundred pounds and likely didn’t have more than 5% body fat. He’d been working out nearby recently, hefting huge weights with silent competence. “Name’s Joe. I couldn’t help but overhear yer little confab and confessional.”

  “Oh?”

  “I work in collections and repossessions.”

  “I see.”

  “I’ve heard about you, Rev.”

  “Father,” Thomas corrected reflexively but without rancor. “And…?”

  “I might be able to help if the numbers work out right.”

  “What numbers, exactly?” Thomas asked warily, not liking the look of the man.

  “Profit margins.” The giant of a man took a seat on a nearby weight bench.

  “You prey on the destitute. Not exactly a path of the righteous, to my mind.”

  “Nah, you got me all wrong, Rev. It’s not like that. A lot of deadbeats are just that: deadbeats. Scum trying to scam the sharks scammin’ them. I ain’t got a lot of sympathy for either side, but there’s enough middle-money I can make a living at it. But some of them, like that guy–”

  “Aaron.”

  “–whoever. Some of ’em just get caught up in a system stacked against ’em. Decent folks tap-dancin’ on a tightrope and not smart or educated or connected enough to get out. They need a few bucks now, so they go to a payday cash loan place, get a little bit behind, hours get cut, they’re hammered. They need a place with a few pieces of furniture, so they rent something with a sticker price of $200 that cost the rental place maybe $75, a place that charges a low weekly fee that sounds reasonable but actually works out to 50% interest a year, auto-deducted from their account for a modest additional fee. You pay for a year, and they’ve already made a profit even if the stuff disappears and the guy dies broke. But they can sell the delinquent loan for fifteen to maybe twenty-five cents on the dollar, and a guy like me can collect thirty to thirty-five cents to make the loan problem go away. The rental place takes a paper loss while profiting. I can get the guy’s name cleared for pennies on the official dollar.”

  None of that was really news to Cranberry, but he wondered where Joe was going with it.

  “A guy like that really wants to clear his name, wants to make good. But the numbers are hard, margins are thin, risks high. I cruise the debtors’ auctions every day looking for things that look like a fair risk.”

  “Debtors’ auctions?”

  “Yeah. When a guy misses a payment, like he did, a loan gets flagged as nonperforming. They can be posted and sold at the drop of a hat. Some sharks like to drop hats. It gets posted to the debt-auction site starting at 100%, then slowly falling. Maybe they start it at 50% if they want it to move in weeks rather than months. People can put in bids for some percentage. His will likely fall to 10% before anyone buys any of it.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Let’s say a hundred-dollar loan of his gets posted and falls to 85 cents. That means that you could buy the debt at 85 cents on the dollar on the spot, and he’d owe you the hundred-dollar debt. All of it that you bought.”

  “Now why would I do that? And why would they?”

  “The sharks that made the original loan are off the hook and can stick the eighty-five bucks in their pockets, write off a paper loss, and move on with no more costs. You get a $100 loan for $85. If you can get him to cough up the full $100, you just made a seventeen percent profit.”

  “Then why doesn’t everyone do that? I only hear about two-percent bonds or five-percent stock market returns.”

  “Because nobody ever—well, hardly ever—makes bank on the full value of a loan. Some are total write-offs. You’re out your whole $85. Most are less than a quarter of the original value. Win some; lose some, so net margins are thin. Mine are better than most because people don’t want to argue with me for some reason.” His smile wasn’t very pleasant as he flexed a gigantic bicep.

  “I see. Now, most of this I’ve heard before. Why do you think we can work together? That is what you implied a minute ago?”

  “Yeah. Guys like that I actually sorta feel sorry for. But I’ve got my bottom line to meet, too.”

  Thomas looked at him, waiting the punchline.

  “If I knew I had a buyer, I could pick up a bunch of loans a titch above market rates, package them, and sell them to you. I pocket the difference. You get a consolidated loan from guys you are working closely with, so you’d have a low default rate. You carry two sets of numbers on the books: the original numbers and the actual price. He’s thirty-five large in debt, I buy it for ten, sell it to you for twelve. You flag them as performing while he’s with you. His credit gets slowly repaired, you charge a fair rate that’s profitable but less than usury and let him pay it off after graduation, and he gets to hold his head high knowing he paid the debt honestly.”

  “That sounds more than a bit unsavory, Joe.”

  “Hey, the system sucks. Hard. I know that. Banks use it to extract pennies from the poor, politicians use it to launder campaign donations, and lawyers and law enforcement use it to track people. It doesn’t make me happy knowing I’m one of the grindstones when I hear some of the genuine sob stories. But I didn’t make this shitty system, I just have to work with it as it is. Think it over. You want to help them. I need to make a living. Maybe we can help each other dig guys like Aaron out from under that mountain sitting on their shoulders. Guys like him kill themselves because they can’t face the idea of knowing they failed bigtime.

  “Think it over, preacher-man. Think it over.”

  And think it over Thomas Cranberry did.

  Research

  And the Lord seeking His workman in the multitude of the people, to whom He proclaimeth these words, saith again: “Who is the man that desireth life and loveth to see good days” (Ps 33:13). If hearing this thou answerest, “I am he,” God saith to thee: “If thou wilt have true and everlasting life, keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile; turn away from evil and do good; seek after peace and pursue it” (Ps 33:14-15). And when you shall have done these things, my eyes shall be upon you, and my ears unto your prayers. And before you shall call upon me I will say: “Behold, I am here” (Is 58:9).

  —Prologue to The Holy Rule of Saint Benedict

  The next few days were nearly sleepless for Bishop Cranberry. He spent many hours at the library researching things, picking the librarians’ brains, finding sources, tracking down specialists and their contact information, reading up on obscure and conflicting bits of history and dogma and philosophy, and talking with abbots at a dozen different monasteries, Wang and other Shaolin monks, and some world-class shooters. He also handed out
missions to a number of his newfound circle of friends, having each look into some aspect of his own specialty, from real estate and building rentals to construction, hospitality and institutional food preparation, twelve-step counselors and rehab program leaders, job trainers and headhunters, physical and massage therapists, sports medicine, finance and actuarial details, and more.

  The more he looked, the more convinced he was that the program was what was needed, and he also became more certain that it would take a miracle to pull it off successfully. The costs and price tags were too big, the timeframes to long, the obstacles too numerous, and the expected institutional pushback at something so radical looked to be nearly insurmountable.

  On the one hand, he was sure he’d only be able to get funding for a small group. But many ideas just didn’t pencil out for a small group because the per-person costs were too high and inefficient, but with a large group the total would be never be approved. Hiring some of the specialists he wanted would only work if the first cohort was north of two hundred men, but feeding, housing, clothing, and training such an army—let alone recruiting and screening that number of suitable candidates to make the system viable—would require far more money than was likely to be available. Even if he could feed them, working hard, for only five dollars a day, which seemed unlikely to him, two hundred men would eat $365,000 a year. A million dollars over three years, the minimum time he was contemplating it would take. And what could generate cash flow of that size to support it after his initial founding funds ran out?

  Housing, clothing, equipping, and training would take more. Much more. Even if they were willing to come and not ask for pay of any sort.

  A conundrum, indeed.

  But try to find a way he must. There had to be a way. It was simply a matter of seeing it.

  Each night he met with the others at the Howling Puffin to exchange notes, numbers, discoveries, and ideas. Some had good news, some had bad news, and some had nothing. In the course of one meeting the topline requirements varied by a full order of magnitude as people pulled out numbers, names, and ideas. It was as exciting as it was frustrating. The enthusiasm flowing from the back room drew in all sorts of semi-regular customers, and the fact that from time to time one of them would come out and shout something like, “Anyone here know anything about clothing design or stone-working?” more than half-expecting nothing, but more often than not, finding someone with a background that was useful.

  One by one, particulars were nailed down (or at least approximate best-case ranges were sketched out and firmed up), options were explored and clarified or discarded. Slowly, the program took shape, and the profile of who they were targeting for their first cohort with it: veterans who were already Christians who had seen combat and had at least some PTSD symptoms, were struggling greatly in their financial and personal lives but had no serious run-ins with the law, collectively had a wide range of training and skills, were at least average in intelligence, and were under thirty.

  Researching how many there were who fit that narrow profile shocked them. A request put in to a local VA counselor who had the right contacts generated a list of almost three hundred names within a one-hour drive, many of whom he knew on a first-name basis. Changing the criminal filter to only eliminating more serious felonies grew the list threefold. He said expanding it statewide would likely get more than a thousand, and the tristate area would probably be more than five thousand. With that many, they could be a little more selective.

  Bill, bunking in the back room again, was looking over the anonymized data they had been given and started to ask probing questions.

  “So how many to start?”

  “We figure about two hundred,” Thomas replied.

  “Hmmm… What’s the primary qualification?”

  “PTSD and smart.”

  “I… don’t think that’s best.”

  “What will be, then?”

  “Well… It’s just that… I’ve done a little project management, and I spent a little time in uniform. Never deployed, but I know a bit about life in uniform, garrisoned troops, and its traditions and habits…. No pun intended. You’re trying to bring a whole bunch of guys together and do the whole thing at once. I think that’s asking for problems.”

  “They can’t be both monk and not-monk at the same time. And we need the numbers to get the specialists.”

  “Eventually, yes,” Bill said. “How about this: start with a dozen, all former NCOs or junior officers. Smart but focus more on command experience, problem-solving ability, and especially good character. Haul them in with a minor stipend or signing bonus on a five- or six-year contract. Sort of like the reserves, with an initial monastery stay plus a few years association. Or some sort of similar vow. Whatever you call it. Get a lot of bugs worked out with them for three months. Maybe longer.

  “Then bring in another thirty or so that need some help but are mostly pretty solid. Maybe get a somewhat shorter commitment. Figure out the logistics with a platoon-sized element in a relatively small location for another three months. That’ll be a lot cheaper than hundreds. Use them as the core to find out what counseling fits, come up with exercise and cooking routines, chants and cadences, all that sort of daily stuff that you never knew existed until it messes with your plans. Make them your core cadre.

  “You don’t want to create a basic training-like atmosphere with chaos and a handful in charge and herds of lost men milling about. It needs to be clearly coordinated, looking organized and supportive to the new arrivals. So about six months after you start—six additional months you have to screen potential recruits—you slowly bring in your two or three hundred in multiples of however many core cadre you have, one group every two weeks. Build your squads slowly so that their first weeks they get a lot of one-on-one time with the squad leader and see the whole weekly training cycle twice before a new guy shows up.

  “Don’t start with guys who need the most help. Start with the ones most likely to be successful. Build the program so it’s got a track record of success to live up to. Work your way down the list slowly. Bring in the really messed-up guys when you have a full squad to help them out. That’ll avoid burnout, and guys like getting support and following with a squad that knows what’s going on. Once it’s going, you can start slowly promoting guys who get their shit together to squad leaders. That sort of recognition can do wonders for self-confidence and self-respect. When a whole squad is solid, or at least a group of them, they can leave a trio of the newer guys in the monastery to act as the squad leaders and guidance for the next batch of recruits while the other guys go back out into the world with their squad-mates to continue to give each other ongoing support, and then try to get them jobs in close physical proximity.

  “But definitely stagger their entry, starting with the most likely to be successful first, so they can help create the program details while they receive lots of support and direction. They are also likely to learn the training the specialists provide so that after a time, you won’t need to hire any outsiders. It can all be done in-house. The six-year contract to give a solid initial continuity, though, will be critical.”

  Bishop Cranberry looked at the unassuming man sitting across from him critically. “That is… brilliant.”

  John had quickly run the numbers while Bill talked. “It’ll cut first-year food costs by more than half, depending on how many we have. If we aim for the high end, four hundred, it would cut it by nearly three quarters. Still, at full cost going forward, but it’s the startup costs that have been killing us.”

  “I think keeping them in squads,” Bill continued, “and using that sort of mutual-support team method can help long-term, too. Once you’ve helped out everyone you can locally, you can sort of collapse some squads together and send them out to found new chapters further away. Some guys will get it together in six months—some a lot longer—but get everyone to commit to two years. Once they get squared away, they can become your missionaries finding new recruits. Maybe
call them monks-errant, like the knights-errant of old.”

  “Well, traditionally, a monk who is out evangelizing would be called a friar. But we want them to make waves—and make families, so a vow of chastity would be right out. And a pun on errant, as well. I like it.”

  “And if someone leaves for a while and has a problem, he’d always be welcomed back. Sort of a safe fallback position to act as a safety net.” Bill was smiling at the thought.

  John tapped his fingers on the tabletop for a moment. “What about bringing in some monks from other monasteries—sort of hired guns as it were—to help get things running? I mean, doing all the religious training yourself sounds like a tall order.”

  Thomas shook his head slowly. “Certainly, if we were establishing something more like a traditional abbey, yes, that would be the way to do it. Expected, even. But I suspect that the vast majority of traditional monks would be appalled at our mission plan and timeline. They’d insist that it takes many years to become a proper monk, and the very idea of giving martial arts practice or job-skills training or serious dating advice would likely… not be well received.”

  “Yeah, they’d likely stroke out at that. Point. The job skills we can mostly cross-train. So you up to leading a full-on seminary by yourself?”

  “If we build it outside our region, we’ll at the very least have to work with them. Perhaps we can find a young and difficult priest they’d like to have hidden away for a while. With a new, still impressionable priest, things would be much easier. Mickey is very sharp, and we’ll be bringing a lot of books, too. Everyone will have a Bible and catechism, of course, and several breviaries and concordances and an exegesis for each study group.”