The first time where I got in trouble was right off. They come by the mall food court, ’cause they like to pick out people eatin’ alone which is what I was doin’ at the time. I was actually there with my friend Jimmy but he was in the toilet and I didn’t even really like him that much. I was eatin’ his onion rings in fact when they approached me. In the van on the way back to the compound I asked them if they ever thought about changin’ the name.
“What’s wrong with Christ’s Happy Wanderers?” Alex asked me.
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with it by itself,” I says, “but if you say it certain ways it sounds like you’re sayin’ Christ-Happy Wanderers. Which is a whole different species of wanderers all together.”
He told me not to worry about that. It was the first of many times when I would hear not to worry about it.
Basically the job of us in the Happy Wanderers was to go from town to town solicitin’ for Jesus. Money, donations of clothes and old TVs, anything what could be sold or was goods for around the house. Of course it didn’t really go to Jesus but to Marty who was the man runnin’ the show. Well you might ask as I did a few times what Jesus would want with a Blu Ray player. The answer was that’s how come we’re givin’ it to Marty. He’s actin’ as God’s representative on Earth. In so far as the aspect of God’s ability to watch Game of Thrones I have to admit he did a fine job of it at that. Sometimes one of the younger fellas would say that it weren’t right to misrepresent ourselves by sayin’ we was getting the money for Jesus when after all we was givin’ it to Marty but Marty made a promise that as soon as Jesus come back he would give him all the money less expenses. I had no reason to doubt this.
Life on the road was hard but I guess it was part of being a Wanderer. We couldn’t rightly call ourselves Christ’s Happy Wanderers if we was a handful of angry Hindoos who stayed in one place all the time. So wander we did and Christ’s we were or Marty’s anyway which he assured us was the next best thing. As to whether we was happy we tried to keep good spirits. Some of us were not so fond of Stryper and White Lion as Marty was and there were always a lot of complaints about the food. Marty insisted on us eating only at Taco Bell or KFC on account of they were owned by Pepsi and heavily invested in by the Mormon Church. So if there wasn’t a one of them in a town he would just send Sherri or one of the girls to the supermarket to buy ingredients and make our own KFC and Sherri wasn’t the best cook in the world.
One time I asked Marty how come it was so important that we eat at places owned by the Mormons.
“Then we can make sure the money’s goin’ to God,” he told me.
“But we ain’t Mormons, are we, Marty?” I asked.
“It’s close enough for government work, Finn,” he says. “And call me The Lord not Marty. I think the government is listenin’ in on us and I want them to know for sure the chain of command around here.”
It was about that time in fact that he started preachin’ that the government was under the spell of Satan and was fixin’ to rain fire down on us. I was pretty excited about that because to be honest about it I was gettin’ tired of the whole Christ’s Happy Wanderers way of doin’ and I figured one end to it was as good as another. Anyway he commenced to givin’ us hell and brimstone about the comin’ Apocalypse which was all well and good because if nothin’ else it meant an finish to all the sermons about how wearin’ shoes were a mark of disrespect for Jesus. But that’s also about the time that he started goin’ after the women — not just Sherri, but even them that could legally see and didn’t walk with no limp — sayin’ it was time to start producin’ sons and daughters for the future of Christ’s Happy Wanderers.
“I don’t quite savvy why we need no more kids for the future The Lord Marty,” I says to him one day this being about a week ago.
“How you mean Finn?” he asks all gone suspicious in his voice. Like it mattered to me. I ain’t bring no girl for him to go after.
“Well, it occurs to me is all,” defendin’ myself all logical-like, “that if the Feds are gonna rurn us all with Satan’s fiery rain there ain’t much point in preparin’ for no future. What’s the point of givin’ them kids naught but a year or so to run around before the Devil smites ’em all down with the FBI?”
I thought it was a pretty good question myself but Marty just told me that if I wanted garbage duty that I should just keep on talkin’. I didn’t want no garbage duty because it consisted of pickin’ out old KFC boxes and helpin’ Sherri make them into a suit which Marty seemed to believe would give him power and dominion over the animals.
That was about the time I took my leave of Christ’s Happy Wanderers. I stoled a pair of shoes someone had left out by the roadside and hitch-hiked here to Lexington. I don’t think they’ll find me here because there’s no KFC or Taco Bell in this particular shoppin’ mall. So it’s a good place to make my home. I’m still hopin’ for good luck with findin’ a new apocalyptic cult and if there’s one thing I know for a fact it’s that the food court is the place to be discovered.
My only fear is that old Jimmy is probably worried sick by now, not to mention the fact that he’s surely done bought a new thing of onion rings.