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In the last episodes . . . Buck now knows the brrkup not only deprives someone of their freewill, it also stops them from keeping any secrets from others. He hears the damming confirmation of this fear in detail by depressing a certain spot on Stanley Haby’s head while the bandit spills the whole story about how his gang came to Contention City. Buck waits for the outrage to hit like a tornado once folks find this out. He’s not going to tell them, but he figures it’s only a matter of time before they figure it out for themselves.
Episode 32
Every Sunday the congregation’s set-up committee gathered an hour before the 10 a.m. service to clean up the liquor and beer-soaked establishment from the previous night's revelry. My family and I joined the weekly effort to make the place as fitting as possible for presenting the Word of God.
The Saturday night mess wasn't nearly as bad as it had been before the days of the brrkup. That Sunday we could have started a half-hour later and finished with plenty of time to spare. However, the people involved in the effort enjoyed socializing, so they never changed the set-up time.
The minister opened the service with talk about his fund-raising plans. "We're going to have enough to start construction in the spring! Praise the Lord! I know the clean-up crew will be glad for the relief!"
He then launched into a bombastic condemnation of the brrkup. I hearkened to every word, as did Edith, a grim look of determination set into her face.
Graax was there too, standing next to Edith, having shown up from his daily wanderings just before bedtime Saturday night. Having talked the issue to death over supper, and settled it, to Graax I only alluded to what the minister planned to speak on. I couldn't tell what emotion, if any, played across his alien face as he listened to the words condemning the brrkup, but I imagined Graax's report of his Earthly adventures would definitely include Rev. Rollins's rantings.
At times, Graax discreetly glanced in back of us at a group of men. They'd filed in after we sat down. I didn't recognize any of the six. Dressed in with blue jeans, guyaberas, boiled shirts and bolo ties, they blended in with the typical go-to-meeting clothes in this town. Why the alien concentrated on that particular group of people, I didn't understand. But acting funny wasn't atypical for Graax. He got keyed up about the oddest things.
"You all right?" I whispered.
He nodded.
Now and then someone glanced over at us to see how we were taking the upbraiding. I could feel the weight of the stares coming from the people behind us. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't uncomfortable. I'm sure Edith, Caleb, Becky and Graax felt the same.
Mostly, we tried to ignore everyone. The glares visibly upset only Becky. She gazed at the ceiling, avoiding the eyes, hating every second of the ordeal.
"The dear Lord in heaven gave you a brain: use it! You shouldn't let anyone—or anything—take your freedoms away from you!" Rev. Rollins exhorted, mopping sweat off his brow with a handkerchief from his breast pocket.
"The founding fathers of this land wouldn't stand for a lack of freedom from the British. They rose against them and overthrew their unrighteous rule. So here we are, their grandsons and granddaughters, in Contention City, one-hundred-and-fifteen years later, giving up our freedoms! You're spitting on their sacrifices, treating them as if your freedom was nothing!
"Let's not forget the greatest freedom loving patriot there ever was: Jesus! We're all supposed to be followers of Jesus. He died for your sins!
"People! He paid the price! You have nothing to feel guilty of! You only have to ask for forgiveness. You don't need the brainclip! We don't need the brainclip in Contention City!
"What about the evil people, Reverend? What about them?" the minister said, assuming a pose off to his side, acting out the role of a questioning member of the congregation.
"I say, what does the Word of God tell us? It says God will deal with them. That's what we should do then—let Our Heavenly Father deal with them!" he answered.
What Rev. Rollins made sense to me too—on the surface. I cringed, expecting his sermon to have persuaded many against the brrkup. Would they remember what happened to the Crawfords? The fight outside of MacMillian's Dry Goods? The Thomas Brothers Gang?
The reverend's talk was mighty flowery for what came down to pure violence and meanness.
Powerful leaders can get people to do almost anything. I'd seen it happen many times in the Army. With his skilled oratory, Rev. Rollins made a powerful leader.
I hoped my family's steady courage under Rev. Rollins verbal strike would give the congregation courage to think for themselves. They must remember what Contention City had become after Sheriff Brucker was murdered, I hoped. They knew they had benefited from the brrkup, even if they didn't have one themselves. Rev. Rollins knew too, though his preaching showed he'd forgotten.
As my family and I filed out after the service, Rev. Rollins nodded my way, letting me know his qualms were professional, not personal. He shook hands with everyone he could.
I cut sharply to the right to avoid shaking his hand although I held no grudge against him. I'd be a phony if I shook hands with him.
The bubbly Clara Hopkins, the druggist's wife and member of the set-up committee, broke away from her brood and made a beeline for us. "It's terrible how the reverend singled you out! I was embarrassed for y'all! He shouldn't have done that after all you've done for this town!"
"Thank you, Mrs. Hopkins," I said, tipping my black felt hat and bowing slightly at the waist. "Rev. has a right to his opinions, but I'll admit the sermon had me feeling more than a little uncomfortable."
"I'm sure you did. I would have just died there! You didn't show it. You and your family carried yourselves admirably," she gushed. "You can always count on me and my husband as your friends."
"Thank you for your kind regards, Clara," Edith said, clasping the woman's gloved hands.
"This town wasn't safe until your husband and his alien friend came. We all owe you an immense debt of gratitude," she said before she turned away to rejoin her family.
It turned out Clara's opinion was more common than I expected. Five other people came up to us and said similar things, although one man came up and said we had no right to show our face in church. He didn't matter to Becky. By then she was beaming with pride. With his sermon, Rev. Rollins engendered sympathy for me and my family.
"See, daughter?" I said. "You've got to stand up for what you believe in."
After a spell, the crowd around us thinned. Hank Atwell came up. "What did you think of the sermon about the brainclip?" He flipped to a clean page in his note pad and waited for a quote for next Friday's newspaper.
I knew people would inspect my words closely. "The reverend is entitled to his opinion," I stated carefully. "Everybody else in town is too."
"I believe using the brrkup is supported by scripture," I countered. "Even if it comes from another planet, it puts in a person's mind what Jesus said was the second most important
commandment: love your neighbor like you love yourself. Any town is off to being a great place to live in when that commandment is heeded. If there was a way I could design a device to ensure the most important commandment was obeyed, I'd do that, too.
"The way I see it, the brrkup doesn't take a person's freedom of choice away," I added. "It only changes it—and it forces the person to take a choice he should have made anyway. Furthermore, the decision about whether or not to love your neighbor isn't the only decision you have to make."
"You should a gone up there and preached!" the pasty-faced writer said with a grin after he read my long quote back.
"Maybe when I get tired of being co-sheriff with Graax here," I jested in reply.
Rev. Rollins probably regretted telling Atwell to be sure to attend the service, if indeed he did. There was no doubt about which side Atwell came down upon. When his paper finally came out, his article said,
"Last Sunday, the always entertaining Rev. Charles Rollins spoke out from the pulpit against the most beneficial device mankind ever employed."
Everyone who'd been brainclipped was in favor of the brrkup. To me, there could be no stronger argument for making brainclipping an individual choice except in the case of lawbreakers. Though I wouldn't admit it publicly, I had my doubts. Publicly, I was still worried about the production ability of the factory box.
Some contended the unanimously positive verdict was because the brrkup was controlling all of their words.
I asked Graax.
"The only thing the brainclip does is ensure the person makes the decision giving the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Further, that they live by what you call the 'Golden Rule'," he said.
The debate after the service wasn't as spirited as I feared. Everyone who'd been brainclipped supported implanting others, as did the majority of the others. Only a few people agreed with Rev. Rollins. There was no protest, just some highbrow debate.
Rev. Rollins's protestations rang hollow and obtuse. People chose sides according to their inner compasses. Many who supported the brrkup didn't understand what Rollins was talking about.
I was asked about the controversy at least six times a day and usually replied with the one undebatable fact: "Life now is better than before the brrkup. I don't see why anyone would want to go back to the way things were before."
"That's true!" they'd usually say. "I don't know why the Reverend is so against them!"
Missing from the debate was the one essential fact that would have turned people against me faster than a mountain lion springs on a rabbit. I'd have done anything to keep it that way.
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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