Every Sunday he puts something, some sort of food item, usually vegetables, but it could be fruit, or loaves of bread, or buns, or muffins, or a single raisin butter tart for people to fight over. He makes some of it - the muffins and butter tarts - but most of it he buys on Tuesday, or some other day, from the Thrift Store. And never a word about it. He distributes it before the service. The three of them leave as soon afterward as possible, to get her mom out of the building and back to the care home for lunch, served at twelve sharp.
He can't tell when, but one day there's spite in it. He's no reason for it. He chastises himself for the feelings, but from this point on he puts the vegetables, or whatever else, on the hoods of vehicles in anger. Certain that she doesn't know, he endures the services, returns the knowing smiles of the other congregants, and helps her mother make her way out of the church immediately following the benediction. "You don't want to be late for lunch," he says loud enough for anyone who wants to know, to hear.
One morning, he thinks it's a Thursday, the phone rings and it's the pastor. He asks if they can get together to talk. He asks if they can meet in town and a restaurant. And since it's the pastor, he can't say no. He tells her where he's going, and why. She smiles and nods at him, and then as he leaves, to herself. She could be the Mona Lisa, she knows that much.
They meet in the Motor Inn coffee shop, the beery smell of the vendor wafting in from the moist carpet of the bar. But they only drink coffee. The pastor offers to pay, suggests they eat something "Break bread together" he says. So he orders a soup and salad. While they wait the pastor says, "You are a blessing to the congregation, you know that," he says, looking at him. "I can't tell you how many times members have come to me to express how much your gifts mean to them." He pauses. "They say, they're joking of course, that it makes them want to go to church. The kids wait for it," he says waiting, looking down at his cup. "You've extended the table," he says, and then sits in silence, sipping. "I want to thank you for this."
But he wants to get up and curse the man. He wants to stand and tell him that it's false, that the game has been called, that, like Christ, he never intended to do good for anyone but himself, that he was tired of it, that if it was the thought that counted, then there was nothing to tally. He wants to reveal to this earnest man the ironic fraud of it. That he's reading Nietzsche "On the Genealogy of Morality" and there is no opium for this kind of revelation. Not even a good hymn well sung. What would he think of that, a farmer reading philosophy (at least it was German)? Even as the pastor's unction rises from this upturned face and concerned eyes, he can only hear, echoing in that high Teutonic brogue: "Priests make everything more dangerous ..."
The ride in: 10'C Wind SSE 12 ks
The ride home: (rode the cyclocross track with JS, then headed home) 20'C Wind NW 15 ks
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