About God and Sin and Missy Titus

“I didn’t have sex with Bonnie! Why do you think I did? Why would I lie to you, Todd?”

“Maybe because you’re a dickhead, Jasper! Maybe because I’m planning to marry her, and you know it and you’re jealous.”

“You’ve been going out with her for a week, Todd!”

“Well, I’m in love with her and you’re a piss-ant, piece of shit, fuck-head!”

“Whoa,” said Jasper. He put his wrist to his forehead and pretended to stagger in place. They were standing out in front of Long’s Drugstore across the street from the abortion clinic. It was five minutes to noon and people were gathering in the parking lot. “I won’t argue with most of that… but piss-ant , Todd? How insulted should I be over being called a piss-ant ? What is it? Is it like being a democrat, or something like that?”

“That’s it! Let’s go!” said Todd.

“You aren’t calling me a Lib, are you?”

“You and me, right here, right now!” Todd said.

“We can’t fight out here, Todd! We’re in the middle of the Save the Un-Born Demonstration!”

“Oh, we can’t, can’t we?” Todd put his metal briefcase down on the sidewalk and took his glasses off and put them in the inside pocket of his dark blue suit coat. “Right here! Right now!” he said again.

It would have been so easy to pop Todd in the nose, but this was not what Jasper was being paid to do. His mission was to get inside the Young Republicans Club. He was to become one of them, and eventually, with a little time and a heady dose of good, old-fashioned bible-thumping—he would run the place.

Jasper had his hands up in the air now. “We’re here to save the unborn, Todd,” he pleaded. And just then, like some sort of weird cosmic bad joke, both men caught sight of Old Missy Titus, the town’s only street-person and damn near ninety years of age, falling to her hands and knees in the middle of Alamo Street. Her grocery cart full of rumpled paper bags was rolling on its own toward them.

Cars slowed to a stop. Both men silently gazed at her for a few moments more, then turned to face each other.

“Do you really want to help the un-born?” Todd asked. His voice had calmed. He put his glasses back on and picked up his briefcase.

“All I want is to do is the right thing, Todd! I want to save unborn babies! Everybody else can take care of themselves, but the unborn, Todd! Who do they have? They have nobody!”

“Boys!” Missy Titus called from the street.

The demonstrators were massing around Missy Titus, who was still on her knees. They paid her little attention because they were all in mid-chant about God and sin and unborn babies. Maybe they thought Old Missy Titus was praying, Jasper decided.

“Well, okay,” said Todd. He looked Jasper in the eyes to make sure Jasper was sincere, then stuck a Young Republicans button onto his lapel. He gave it a pat and held out his hand to shake. “You’re going to need a red tie.”

“Next time,” said Jasper. “I got this though,” he held up a bible.

“Sorry about my behavior back there,” Todd said as they began to walk. “I’ve been on edge lately. I always get this feeling I’m being watched.”

Jasper caught sight of two FBI agents on adjoining roofs with binoculars and long lensed cameras and tried not to smile.

“I’m sure it’s all in your head, Todd.”

He saw Bonnie in the crowd, and he saw Bonnie touch her index finger to the corner of her right eye. In FBI speak, roughly translated, that means, How’s it going?

Jasper scratched his nose and put his left hand in his pocket—which meant the operation is proceeding as planned. Then he licked his lips, which meant something else entirely, and Bonnie’s face turned bright red, and she quickly turned away.

—712 words—