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------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- “Morris, are we going to the chapel tomorrow?” Terry asked. “I didn’t think you’d want to.” ------- “I don’t particularly want to hear a preacher, but I always like to see the geezers. Sure we’ll go, unless you don’t want to.” ------- They were at the chapel early the next morning. Alice had already opened the folding doors to the larger room with its high ceiling and pastel stained glass windows. Morris wondered if they were expecting a large crowd. Good luck, but maybe the reverend would bring his own. ------- The Reverend Mr. Cole was standing in the foyer talking to Alice. He was a tall man in his fifties, bearded and distinguished looking. Occasionally he glanced into the chapel which was filling up slowly. A respectable showing. Morris had to smile. Concerned about the honor of the Fellowship! ------- “Who is this guy?” he asked Harry. ------- “No idea. Something Alice arranged. She thinks we need more religion. I don’t suppose it will hurt us, Morris.” ------- “No,” Morris agreed. There were worse things than religion. ------- When it was time, and they were spread out in the chairs to make the chapel appear full, Alice asked the visitors to introduce themselves. The pair of elderly women had just wandered in, they said. The young man was visiting area churches. Too bad it wouldn’t be a normal meeting, Morris thought, but what was normal? There were several announcements, reminders of the Women’s Group and the Tag Sale. -------Reverend Cole had stayed in the smaller room while Alice was speaking. He’d used the time to put on a colorful robe, and when Alice introduced him he swept up the aisle, just as he would in a real church it occurred to Morris. -------The reverend appeared to be carrying a small box. He sat on one of the three ornate chairs on the raised platform and opened a concertina. He began to play, quite expertly, what sounded to Morris like a Scottish ballad. When he’d finished, he put down the concertina and stood behind their rarely used lectern. ------- It was to be a genuine sermon, Morris realized, probably the first preached in the chapel since the demise of the old Universalist congregation more than half a century before. Cole was a good speaker, and it was his own story, about his experience as lead attorney in a death penalty appeal attorney a few years before his late-in-life ordination. He had defended a suspected hit man who ordinarily wouldn’t have inspired much sympathy even within the anti-death penalty movement. But the evidence against him was badly tainted. The witnesses complained that they’d been coerced and that they’d never really identified the killer. The weapon found in Anthony’s car was an obvious throw-down, probably too dangerous even to fire. The testimony of a jailhouse snitch was worthless. They wanted Anthony badly, for something, for anything. He could feel sympathy for the cops and the DA, Cole said. Anthony was a dangerous man, but what they had done to him was wrong. If you could railroad a bad man you could railroad a good one, and it happened too often. ------- Cole was a firm opponent of the death penalty, but the real point of his sermon was that he’d come to know Anthony, Ant’ny he called himself, and he wasn’t a monster. He was more like a soldier, probably a lot like some soldiers Morris had known in the army, men who were quite casual about taking a life. But Anthony was a soldier in a war that was generally fought beneath public notice. He was a garbage collector, he told Cole, an exterminator. They should give him a metal. For all his bravado, Anthony was afraid, and he was angry. It would be an insult to die for something he hadn’t done. -------They lost the appeal. Anthony died by lethal injection, and John Cole was a witness. Despite the considerable effort made to justify the death penalty and to sanitize the actual process of execution, it was an ugly business, Cole said. In his opinion it was immoral, a national disgrace. It put us in the company of the most vicious governments in the world, and it was an admission of defeat, an attempt to bury our failure as a society. It was against the law of love. ------- A good talk, Morris thought, for all the man was preaching to the choir. He felt like saying, ‘tell it to the Christians’. A very good talk, though, by a decent fellow. ------- When Cole finished, he sat down and played another sad little Scottish tune. Morris had been tying to think of a comment or question. He liked to participate in the inevitable discussions in some small way. They were a thoughtful group of people and always had good questions. But there was no discussion this time. Cole walked back up the aisle and stood at the rear of the room. ------- No one moved. Finally Morris stood and walked over to Cole and shook his hand. ------- “Fine sermon, Mr. Cole,” he said. “I wish more people could have heard it.” ------- “I’ve given it before,” Cole said with a smile. “I think many people don’t want to hear it.” ------- Others had begun to line up behind Morris. He thanked the reverend again and went to get a cup of coffee. Half a dozen people had stood in line to shake Cole’s hand. The others made their way to the food table. They’d talk to the reverend later, with a cup of coffee in their hand. ------- The members of the fellowship were invariably kind, and they were quite sharp despite their age, but they weren’t church-goers. That was the whole point of the Fellowship. -------Morris watched Cole talk with the members. He’d taken off the robe and looked more comfortable. Perhaps someone should have warned him that they didn’t have a real service. Their programs were largely informal and informational. Sometimes personal and even partisan, but not the proxy voice of a higher power. Morris had been to many churches and synagogues over the years. Every service was a performance. The sermon, the mass, or the reading of the Torah were buttressed by music and prayers and often a small crew of officiants. An unadorned sermon was a strange affair. It was as if Jesus had delivered his Sermon on the Mount and the crowd had applauded and slapped his back. ‘Good job.” And then gone about their business, unaware that they had been addressed by the purported Son of God. -------“Tough job, defense attorney,” Morris said to Cole when they both had their coffee and doughnut. -------“Easier than corporate law,” Cole said. “No, you get used to it. Most of my clients were guilty, but they were all human beings. I made sure they got a fair trial. Anthony was my only death penalty case. Not something I could ever get use to. No one should. It’s what pushed me to the seminary finally. I felt sick about Anthony. I know he was a bad man, but he was being framed. It made me disgusted with our justice system.” -------“I’ve known some people society would be better off without,” Morris said, “but I agree with you. A civilized society should stay out of the death business. I can tell you something though. I don’t know how much it helps. Anthony was framed, that’s true, and he was also guilty as charged. He fooled you, Reverend, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of.” -------“What are you saying?” Cole looked confused, and angry. “How can you know that?” -------“Can’t tell you that Mr. Cole, but I have my sources, and it’s true. It was a hit, ordered and paid for by a mob boss.” -------“You were in the justice system?” Cole asked. -------“You could say that,” Morris said. “I was involved.” ------- |