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The Attack of the Seventh Day Adventists
Oct. 18th, 2006 09:39 pmWhen I was 17 I lived with the guy I always refer to as "The Wife Beater".
When I met him, he had just recently gotten out of jail. (I know, I know, I was young and stupid.) We had pretty much nothing, and we ended up spounging off a lot of his friends. It all worked out, when I got a job and started paying for an apartment, a lot of his friends started spongnig off me.
Anyway, apart from the usual collection of thugs, cons and street people, one of his friends turned out to be some guy who visited random people in jail as a part of his church outreach program. He visited a number of people actually, and one of them just happened to be The Wife Beater (TWB). The theory behind the visits being that if you gave people an alternative support and social group other than thugs, cons and street people, maybe they could stay out of jail in the future. This friend - I can't for the life of me remember his name, but let's call him Mr Smith - was a very pleasant middle-aged Jamaican man and a devout member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Mr Smith had been really adamant that TWB keep in touch with him after getting out of jail, so I got dragged along to dinner with him and Mrs Smith. They spent a lot of time talking about the Bible with TWB happily agreeing with everything they said. I didn't say much, both because I was very shy back then and also because I really didn't know what to say. At the end of the evening the Smith's ended up inviting us to go to church with them, and TWB accepted for both of us. (He was like that.)
Going to church with them was a bit of an experience. I didn't know much about Adventists - still don't - but they hold their services on Saturdays. The service was very dynamic, with an energetic minister who did a lot of passionate shouting, and lots of "amen" and "hallaluah" coming out of the audience. They also were apparently really down on the premarital sex, or at least that's what I gathered from the sermon.
They also went out of their way to be very welcoming to guests. And every single person there knew right away that we were guests the absolute second we walked in the door for the simple reason that we were the only white people in the entire church. At the end of the service TWB completely disappeared under a sea of dark suits, while I had my hands clasped by what must have fifty or sixty very sincere, very friendly and very floral middle-aged women. I was shy to the point of being timid back then and I was more than a little freaked out by the whole experience of finding myself the centre of attention. I think we visited the Smith's once more in their home, but we never went to another church service.
The fact that we didn't really want to hang out with them as such didn't stop them from wanting to stay in touch, and Mr Smith would often call the apartment to talk to TWB. At some point in those conversations he offered us some second-hand furniture and TWB accepted. Mr Smith made vague plans to come by some time in the week, but he never made it on the agreed-upon date. He didn't make it the night after that, either. A couple more days passed and we just kind of forgot about it.
Friday night rolled around, and the few guys in TWB's social circle who had worked that week picked up their pay. We were the only ones who had an actual apartment so everybody ended up back at our place. A couple of guys picked up beer, somebody else brought some smoke, and our tiny basement was soon full of smoke and loud music and raucous dirty jokes and boastful stories about the last time somebody got really high/stole something/got in a fight.
Then the doorbell rang.
We didn't even hear it over the loud music, our landlady finally came downstairs to yell at us that there was somebody trying to get in the door. I opened it and a dozen freshly-scrubbed faces smiled down the stairs at us into the hazy room. With Mr Smith in the centre of them.
TWB immediately bolted into the bathroom and locked the door.
I could not get TWB to come out of the bathroom. So I grabbed one of TWB's friends - a guy named Hutch - and the two of us helped them carry the furniture down the stairs. Once the unloading was done Mr Smith wanted to talk to TWB, so Hutch hanmered on the bathroom door until he finally came out. He was red to the collar and he shame-facedly told Mr Smith that he had been drinking like he was talking to his school principal.
Trhough this entire thing the rest of the TWB's friends had been sitting in the front of the apartment without moving or saying a single word, their eyes like saucers nestled in the stubble.
Eventually the nice religous people left and everybody went back to their drinking and smoking and telling stories about the last time they got really high/stole something/got in a fight. Except that every now and then there would be a lull in the coversation and Hutch would bring up how we had just had a dozen Seventh Day Adventists deliver furniture to our apartment in the middle of a party. And then the two of us would fall apart in helpless giggles.
TWB never did learn to see the humour in it.
When I met him, he had just recently gotten out of jail. (I know, I know, I was young and stupid.) We had pretty much nothing, and we ended up spounging off a lot of his friends. It all worked out, when I got a job and started paying for an apartment, a lot of his friends started spongnig off me.
Anyway, apart from the usual collection of thugs, cons and street people, one of his friends turned out to be some guy who visited random people in jail as a part of his church outreach program. He visited a number of people actually, and one of them just happened to be The Wife Beater (TWB). The theory behind the visits being that if you gave people an alternative support and social group other than thugs, cons and street people, maybe they could stay out of jail in the future. This friend - I can't for the life of me remember his name, but let's call him Mr Smith - was a very pleasant middle-aged Jamaican man and a devout member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Mr Smith had been really adamant that TWB keep in touch with him after getting out of jail, so I got dragged along to dinner with him and Mrs Smith. They spent a lot of time talking about the Bible with TWB happily agreeing with everything they said. I didn't say much, both because I was very shy back then and also because I really didn't know what to say. At the end of the evening the Smith's ended up inviting us to go to church with them, and TWB accepted for both of us. (He was like that.)
Going to church with them was a bit of an experience. I didn't know much about Adventists - still don't - but they hold their services on Saturdays. The service was very dynamic, with an energetic minister who did a lot of passionate shouting, and lots of "amen" and "hallaluah" coming out of the audience. They also were apparently really down on the premarital sex, or at least that's what I gathered from the sermon.
They also went out of their way to be very welcoming to guests. And every single person there knew right away that we were guests the absolute second we walked in the door for the simple reason that we were the only white people in the entire church. At the end of the service TWB completely disappeared under a sea of dark suits, while I had my hands clasped by what must have fifty or sixty very sincere, very friendly and very floral middle-aged women. I was shy to the point of being timid back then and I was more than a little freaked out by the whole experience of finding myself the centre of attention. I think we visited the Smith's once more in their home, but we never went to another church service.
The fact that we didn't really want to hang out with them as such didn't stop them from wanting to stay in touch, and Mr Smith would often call the apartment to talk to TWB. At some point in those conversations he offered us some second-hand furniture and TWB accepted. Mr Smith made vague plans to come by some time in the week, but he never made it on the agreed-upon date. He didn't make it the night after that, either. A couple more days passed and we just kind of forgot about it.
Friday night rolled around, and the few guys in TWB's social circle who had worked that week picked up their pay. We were the only ones who had an actual apartment so everybody ended up back at our place. A couple of guys picked up beer, somebody else brought some smoke, and our tiny basement was soon full of smoke and loud music and raucous dirty jokes and boastful stories about the last time somebody got really high/stole something/got in a fight.
Then the doorbell rang.
We didn't even hear it over the loud music, our landlady finally came downstairs to yell at us that there was somebody trying to get in the door. I opened it and a dozen freshly-scrubbed faces smiled down the stairs at us into the hazy room. With Mr Smith in the centre of them.
TWB immediately bolted into the bathroom and locked the door.
I could not get TWB to come out of the bathroom. So I grabbed one of TWB's friends - a guy named Hutch - and the two of us helped them carry the furniture down the stairs. Once the unloading was done Mr Smith wanted to talk to TWB, so Hutch hanmered on the bathroom door until he finally came out. He was red to the collar and he shame-facedly told Mr Smith that he had been drinking like he was talking to his school principal.
Trhough this entire thing the rest of the TWB's friends had been sitting in the front of the apartment without moving or saying a single word, their eyes like saucers nestled in the stubble.
Eventually the nice religous people left and everybody went back to their drinking and smoking and telling stories about the last time they got really high/stole something/got in a fight. Except that every now and then there would be a lull in the coversation and Hutch would bring up how we had just had a dozen Seventh Day Adventists deliver furniture to our apartment in the middle of a party. And then the two of us would fall apart in helpless giggles.
TWB never did learn to see the humour in it.