I placed this in creation, but I would like some discussion on this story.
Posting on the barb is one of the only things that helped me get through this crazy time in my life. I was beyond grateful for the thoughts and 'huggles' that I recieved on the board.
Many of you will remember this, as I told it narativly. Now I have woven it into a fiction peice.
I still live in Ephraim. The dean that you will read about in this story was relieved of duty due to some investigation and muk raking that I did for the local newspaper. It was a crazy six month battle.
For our god
“Mike, I’ve heard rumors, are you still a Mormon?” Lee Guile, the dean of students (my boss) was standing over the low wall of my cubicle. He’s not directly my boss. I’m a state hired, student peer, counselor but I report to the dean. I think that he hates the fact that he cant fire me almost as much as he hates me.
I squinted up from my paperwork.
“What?”
“Simple question, are you still a Mormon?” his upper lip curled.
“Mother fucker,” I said under my breathe.
“What? I didn’t quiet make that out,” he leaned in closer.
“I don’t understand your question,” I answered, going back to my work.
“I just heard that you left the church,” he broke eye-contact long enough to inventory the eavesdropping audience of student workers.
Now, to understand why this issue of being a Mormon is such a hot topic at my college you have understand the people that run it, and the students that attend it.
Snow College was founded in 1865 by the Mormon Church. The school was run by the church until 1945 when they sold it to the state of Utah for a pocket full of money.
The church, however, retained all the land surrounding the campus. They built buildings “institutes of religious learning”, that to an outsider, would seem to be additions to the campus. The church retains, to this day, all of the seats on the board of trustees, and the college employs mostly Mormons-from the administration down to the janitors.
I kept my head down, eyes on my work.
“I am not going to talk about this,” I said.
He took a step backward. His eyes were wide. His hand shot up to his chest.
“What?”
He shook his head (in what I felt) was a contrite sign of pity.
“Oh Mike,”
Then he stood there, watching me, waiting.
He was staring at my chin. I have a nicely trimmed goatee but some factions of the Mormon Church don’t permit their members to have beards.
Dean Guile, being an upstanding Mormon, told me to shave. The employee dress policy disagrees, so I kept it. That was the beginning of a long series of similarly petty battles.
I turned the page in the booklet I was reading.
He cleared his throat.
“huhum,”
I moved a pink highlighter over the page, facts on teen pregnancy.
He reached down and tapped my shoulder. I nearly flinched.
“It’s a simple question, are you still a Mormon?”
I threw the book down onto the desk.
Little gasps escaped the mouths of the girls sitting in the next row of cubicles.
“Listen Lee, we are both state employees working in a state building. I am not about to discuss my religious views with you.”
The dean’s face visibly cycled through four shades of red. His fists clenched and released at his sides.
“No, you are going to talk about this. Religion is the most important thing in this life,” he said, his voice cracking on the final word, “You should know that.”
I have to give the dean credit. He certainly takes his religion seriously. He is a church leader, no surprise, his title in the Mormon world is “stake president”. It’s the equivalent to being a catholic bishop. So the dean has some weight to throw around.
Students call him ‘president’ when they see him on campus. The more religiously zealous faculty follows him without question, despite the handful of sexual harassment charges settled out of court for a dollar total of 116,000. The administration is worse, when they turned a blind eye after he was caught embezzling government funds, both in 1999 and again in 2002. In 2003 they gave him a raise and awarded him with a medal of civic achievement.
Snow College is still very much a church school.
I slowly slid my chair away from my desk, nearly rolling over the dean’s toes. I stood, and purposefully close to the man. I lowered my gaze to meet his. He puffed his chest out. I stood still and straight. We looked like to bucks about to battle for the best grazing ground and the youngest females. Maybe that’s what he thought we were doing, I chuckled at the thought.
A glint of fire showed in his eyes.
“You laugh?! I am talking about your eternal salvation and you laugh?”
The office workers had dropped all show of working at this point. Their peering eyes made me uncomfortable. An audience either makes me bloody bold or very timid, I chose to be bold.
“I won’t say this again Mr. Guile. I am not discussing religion with you,” I pointed my finger to the dozen gathered watchers.
“This is not the place, and this is certainly not the time,” I said.
He raised his hand, waiting for me to acknowledge him. I didn’t. I just looked at him. My jaw was tight, and now my fists were clenching at my side. He started to open his mouth, but I stopped him with a finger pointed in his face.
“And if you want to have a little religious discussion, you can go a crossed the street to the church buildings and call me to set up an appointment,” I said.
More gasps from my gathered colleagues. One girl dropped her clipboard, scattering her papers on the floor. Neither of us moved to help her as she gathered them.
“I just cant believ..” he started.
“And even then I wouldn’t take the time to meet with a man that uses public humiliation as a manipulation tactic!”
“Are you Mormon or not?!” he shouted stomping his foot.
“I am not going to answer,” I replied, oddly cool after my outburst.
“People die in the name of their faith, and you won’t answer as to what religion you claim?”
Fireworks. I truly expected firworks to blow out of his ears. Or sparks, at least, to jump from his nose.
He shook his head. “Oh Mike…”
He was done, I was shocked. But he didn’t turn to leave. The other workers were silent. Everyone was looking at me. It felt like an intervention. I do them from time to time for students with serious drug problems, they never end well.
“Well,” he said, “Mike,” he put his hand on my shoulder. I clenched my jaw but didn’t shrug it off.
“Are you a Mormon, or did you leave the faith?”
My arm came swinging before I could stop it. Time froze. I was about to punch the old man in the face. I couldn’t believe it.
I didn’t do it. I turned my body as my arm swung, it effectively knocked his hand off my shoulder (and scared the shit out of the old dean). I think the move came off looking like a fierce shrug. His face was cracked with fear before he masked it with the cool calm he is famous for. He stepped back.
“I am ashamed of you. I try to reach out, to bring you back to the fold and you lash out at the hand that feeds you,” he said. He slouched forward a bit, he looked old and tired. He winked at me as he turned to the other students.
“Everyone, leave Mike alone today, he is having a rough time.”
“Dean, in your office. Now,” I said as I charged passed him.
I got there before him, and thought about sitting in his $300 leather chair.
“Yeah that would piss him off,” I said to myself before plopping down on the coach.
He was taking his sweet ass time, I could overhear him talking outside.
“I sure am worried about Mike you guys,” he said to the stunned students.
I was cracking my knuckles as he came in. He sat in his chair and looked to the door he left open. I followed his gaze and saw a few faces peaking over their computers. The dean turned to me with a grin.
“Mind if I close that?” I asked.
“If you feel you need to,” he answered.
I did.
I will never forget my first meeting in this office. The dean had asked me to say a prayer before we talked about business. I seethed at the thought.
“So what the hell was all that about?” I asked
“Please, Mike watch your language,” he replied.
I didn’t apologize.
“I understand that you have been investigating other religions,” he said gravely.
“Not that it is any of your business, but yes I have been,” I said, glad to finally have it done with.
“Further, that girl you have been dating,”
“Lisa,” I said.
“Yes, Lisa, she has told me that you have been telling her to read books written by buddist monks, is that true?”
“Yeah, and?” I said.
Actually it was one book, a collection of quotes from eastern philosophers I had given her for a report she was writing on Japan.
“I don’t appreciate you trying to pull souls from the flock,” he said.
I wouldn’t have believed that anyone talked like this before I met lee Guile, what a fuck.
“Listen, I will give anyone anything reading materials I feel like and you don’t have to appreciate it. I won’t mind not having your blessing,” I made the sign for quotation marks on the word blessing. He broke the pencil he was holding in his hands.
“Don’t you understand? This is a fight you can’t win,” he threw the pieces of broken pencil at the wall above my head, they fell in my lap.
“You ignorant young pup!” He was really angry now. He stood and seemed to tower over me. The smug look faded fast from my face.
“You think you can come to my town, to my school and bring a bag full of crazy ideas?” he was breathing hard, I could smell the salami he had for lunch.
“You start debates, evolution vs. creation in your biology class! You got Mrs. Anderson to teach an entire course on the black civil rights movement. And as if that’s not bad enough you have scraped up the bottom of the barrel and organized those unmotivated lifeless students into the very first student democrat club,” he counted off the offenses on his fingers.
I slid further down in my seat with each counted finger. Something unusual happened to me, I questioned myself and my motives for my actions. I wondered if I was wrong to try and change the world from what it was when I found it, to what I thought it should be.
Look what was happening right in front of me. This guy was about to have a heart attack, and he wasn’t the only one raising at least one eyebrow to the changes on campus. He missed a few on his list. I had petitioned the college president to ban Mormon advertisements on campus, and to remove the Mormon schedules of events from the school’s calendar and website. Maybe I had gone too far.
“Well, don’t you have anything to say?” he asked.
I was the brash young buck no longer. Doubt swam in my heart. I wouldn’t shield myself with anger or blind obedience to my ‘liberal’ ideals. I was being honest with myself, and it was time for a serious self-examination.
“I...I think that maybe I have gone to far,” I said, and I meant it. I still felt like the man was a prick and a crook. But I try to listen to reason when I hear it, sometimes I am surprised at the source.
“Damn right you have,” he said, I think some of my smugness rubbed off on him.
“I need some time to think about this,” I said. I gained confidence with my resolve.
“But this is the last time that we will talk about this topic in this building,” I said.
“No it’s not. I have hope for you yet,” he said a sly almost sadistic smile crawled a crossed his face.
“Mike I call you unto repentance,” he preached.
Bricks. I was hit by bricks at that moment.
“What?” I asked.
“You have sinned against your god, and me,” he said, “and for your sins I call you unto repentance.”
I felt a small tremor of fear dance up my spine. I felt like the world was spinning faster, and I had somehow missed something.
The dean kept on smiling, and I kept staring.
I had seen too many psycho thriller movies start like this.
“You want me to repent?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Who are you to call me to repentance?” he raised an eyebrow in answer.
“And if I don’t?”
“Well you have had a good run at this school but..” he trailed off.
“But what?!”
“Didn’t you just try and take a swing at me out there?” that creepy crawling smile twisted his mouth like a cork school. He looked like the Grinch that stole Christmas on crack.
“What the hell?! What are you talking about?” I was beyond upset, “You have got to be fucking kidding me!” I shot out of my seat and was suddenly hovering over the dean, shoulders squared.
He didn’t twitch, he was captain cool.
“Yes, you did, you nearly punched me. If I hadn’t of moved you would have made a clean shot of it,” he said, “and there were thirteen worthy witnesses that will swear to it if I told them too.”
My heart hurt in my chest. No. This is wrong for so many reasons.
“But,” I whispered as I fell to the ground before his chair.
“And who do you think we will be filing a police report to?” He asked menacingly.
Ah, yes. The devoutly Mormon sheriff, the dean’s next door neighbor and golfing buddy.
“And what, do you think my good friend Vice President Glen would protest to an expulsion form, signed by me, sitting on his desk?” His voice had gone husky. He was looking down to wear I was crumpled on the floor.
Politics. He had beat me at a game of politics. I had been stupid. “Tick for tock” is what my dad used to always say.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
He let out a sigh of satisfaction. Like a cat playing with a mouse.
“Get up on your knees.”
I did.
“Now pray to god, and ask for his forgiveness,” he said.
I kneeled there for a moment. I was drowning. Too much…
“Get on with it!” he shouted.
I didn’t look, but I swear to god that the man had a hard on. Sweat was dripping from his face.
I bowed my head with a promise to find a way to expose this man for what he was. To get even, for myself, and for all the other students he had on their knees in his office.
I bowed my head in bondage. I prayed. My words were for repentance, but my heart prayed for freedom, and for justice.
“Dear god…” |
