Faith and the Lack Thereof

He had heard that God existed, but he had never actually seen him. For Holden McAllister seeing was believing, and therefore he had his doubts. Then again he had never seen Betty Straus' breasts, but he had no doubt of their existence, or their magnificence. He was a young man of controversy, but he could live with it.
One other thing that he had not seen first hand, yet was quite convinced of it's presence, was war. America was fighting a war that he opposed for two reasons; the first being that young men were dying for a cause that they didn't believe in, and the second was that he could die for a cause that he didn't believe in. More and more he became occupied with ways to stay alive, and more so with ways to see Betty's breasts. These were the driving forces in the life that Holden was surviving.
His friends were all gone now, either drafted or dodging, and he was feeling the hot breath of his impending draft notice breathing down his neck every time he saw the mailbox. He finally vowed to avoid the box and the mail altogether, and started leaving the house only threw the backdoor. He soon realized however, that his family was not the only ones in the neighborhood that received mail in equally haunting mailboxes, so he returned to his earlier practice of using the front door, but only at night when possible. Any necessary daytime travels would cause his hands to immediately rise to each temple as makeshift blinders, making him feel like a horse as he trotted to the bus stop.
It was at the bus stop that he saw Betty and her wool covered breasts. His narrow focal point zoomed to the treasures that she hid in her sweater until her purse swung square into his unsuspecting head and knocked the blinders right off. He walked back home to find that his mother had brought in the mail and left it on the kitchen table.
One afternoon his mother, much to Holden's dismay, brought his growing stack of mail directly to his room. He screamed as she dropped the letters on his bed. "Mom, what are you doing?"
"We're playing bridge honey. We need the table." She smiled at him in a way that frightened Holden, as if she knew something that he didn't. It was a look that said,"Yes, it's there son, and as soon as you leave we're putting four card tables in your bedroom." He looked at the letters cautiously.
The first was from his best friend, Higgins, who had actually volunteered for the service. Holden was convinced that Higgins was an idiot.
It wasn't the first letter that he had received from his friend since he left for V- and that damned war. The letters were actually quite amusing as Higgins had managed, due to severe allergies that the army had somehow overlooked, to land a job as the bartender and caretaker of the officer's club on his base. There were always dirty japes that he had overheard or been told by the officers as they got drunk and lonely in his bar. Some of the officers even started to become familiar to Holden as he read their accounts, as if they were characters in an entertaining book. The letter was about Holden's favorite character, a drunken colonel that treated Higgins like his personal servant. It was humorous enough that the thought of going to V- didn't seem so bad, but only to watch.
The letter ended with a few words of personal note and an inquiry to the treasures of Betty Straus.
The next few letters were nothing important. The last one was from Higgins' mother. She wrote to tell him that her son had been killed in V- when he was driving a colonel, and their jeep had hit a mine. She wasn't sure if it was the same drunk colonel.
Holden tore up the letter and ran out of his room, past the bridge game, past Betty Straus and her breasts, all the way to Higgins' home eight blocks away. There were cars that he didn't recognize in the drive, and fearing that they might be military people who would wonder why he wasn't giving his life for drunk colonels, he stopped and went back home. The breath on his neck got hotter.
He devoted hours to the library, searching any book that might hold a way for him to avoid the draft. He refused to embarrass his father by running to Canada. His health was great and his grades were bordering him on expulsion. He had two older brothers that were either graduated or close to graduating from college, and both were married. Every loophole slowly tightened like a noose as he read frantically through the restrictions that made each unattainable.
It was on such a day, when he had walked with blinders around the kitchen table, put them in his pocket as he tried not to stare at Betty's sweater passing him on the sidewalk, that he first saw God. He was on page seventy-six of a lawbook regarding the legalities of a wartime draft, paragraph four, clause two: CLERGY EXEMPT. Clergy exempt period, no footnotes or restrictions, fine print, or regulations, just exemption, and with it salvation. So it was that Holden McAllister became Brother McAllister of the Vivavino Monastery and Wine Distributing Company.
Days passed into months, and those into years, and although he couldn't recall ever taking an oath of silence, he had yet to hear a single word. Brother McAllister passed the time by picking grapes and drinking wine with the other silent monks. On Sundays they prayed. Everyone except him, who continued to drink wine and pondered if he really had faith, or whether or not he had ever seen magnificent breasts. Time had passed so cruelly on his hormones that he began to doubt their very existence. These thoughts perplexed him, and yet kept him strangely focused. He was positive that they were the grounds for his staying sane.
"I've got to see some tits before I go insane!" he would write repeatedly in his journal, which of course only confirmed the fact that he was indeed crazy, since breasts didn't even exist. His desire to accept the unproven only drew him closer to the other monks that picked grapes everyday but Sunday.
It was when he stumbled upon Brother Epstein drinking wine in the game room that his lack of faith was exposed into the open.
"Do you really think that you're the only one here that doesn't believe in God?" he asked McAllister as soon as he entered the room.
"What are you talking about?" was Holden's reply as he was startled by two things at the exact same time. Those things being the question, and the fact that it had been asked aloud by a voice other than his own.
"I read it in your journal. You doubt God.", Brother Epstein continued as he offered the wine with a graceful swooping gesture.
"You read my journal?"
"Of course."
Brother McAllister sipped straight from the bottle. "Are you suggesting that you don't believe in God?"
"It's not a suggestion," said Epstein with such conviction that you would think he spoke everyday. "It's a fact."
"Then why are you here?"
Brother Epstein opened another bottle. "Because I feel guilty. I feel bad for not believing."
"You feel guilty for not believing in God so you've devoted your whole life to him?"
"Yes, to make it up. Penance."
"To whom are you making this penance?" asked McAllister in disbelief.
"Well, God of course." Epstein answered, failing to understand his companions lack of comprehension.
"Of course," repeated McAllister,"who else?"
They drank for a moment in mutual thought. "Epstein, why did you break your oath of silence to tell me that?"
"Oath? There's no oath."
"Then why are you the first person to speak to me since I've arrived?" McAllister snapped in disbelieving anger.
"Nobody talks to each other. They're fighting over existence."
"Of God?"
"Breasts."
On that day Holden decided to leave the Vivavino Monastery and Wine Distribution Company, and promised to contact them with any information he could obtain regarding the faith. The monks waved him farewell, but none spoke, not even Epstein.
Holden returned to the outside world unsure of his status. Was he still exempt? Was he still clergy? Was he ever clergy? He took comfort in the fact that he was almost twenty-five now, and would soon be older than the government wanted their dying boys to be. He also took sadness in the fact that he was almost twenty-five now, and wasn't sure he had ever seen breasts.
These were the thoughts that plagued him as he slept on the sofa in his parents' livingroom. His father had been so embarrassed that his son had become a monk instead of running off to Canada like any other good American boy would have done, that he had turned Holden's room into a game room, complete with wine rack.
Two weeks passed, it was his birthday and he was walking to the mailbox, which was difficult with blinders on, in hopes of a card from his grandma with a lovely check tucked inside, when it happened.
They were more spectacular than he ever could have dreamed. Pinned between his hands on either side of his head, and pushed smack against his face they sat, as if they had been coming up the sidewalk to welcome him home. He had turned towards them from his walkway. His blinders were on and his neck was hunched over so as to watch his feet, when he ran right into Betty Straus, and with her, her breasts. The smacking of a purse against his head sat them free, and he immediately sent a telegram to the monastery.
A telegram that was received by Brother Epstein who quickly let out a shout of joy in knowing that his faith had been restored. The other monks also rejoiced, and they loaded all of their wine onto their official monastery bus to go on a crusade into the holy city and see for themselves.
Later that afternoon is when the second best thing to ever happen to Holden occurred. He and his father had just loaded their truck with bricks and rocks for a wall they were building when they heard on the radio that the war was over. He had never been so happy, and his father drove straight to the train station where there was sure to be a party with all of the returning soldiers, drunk monks, and girls with beautiful breasts in town.
"What a great birthday." his father said as he padded Holden on the shoulder. His father was so proud that his son had joined a monastery, and couldn't wait to show him off in front of all the other fathers who were embarrassed that their sons had been so un-American as to fight in the war instead of fleeing to Canada.
They drove the weighed down truck slowly through town so that everyone would be sure to get a stone to throw.

Letter From the Editor (hey, that's me!)

It has been suggested that I have been dumping a bit of filler on this site. That's not to say it isn't quality, most of the posting are pieces that I am very happy with, whereas others are more, um...lacking I guess. That being said, then yes, I have dumped some filler here, but only as a way to keep the site updated on a regular basis. This shit is hard man. Of course, who am I to suggest you will like or dislike the same pieces as me. My favorites may be lining your canary's cage and vice versa, assuming any of us actually own canarys and/or cages.
All in all, I do believe that the site is doing ok, regardless of the few weak links that have surfaced. If you would like to add your thoughts then please leave a comment, otherwise shut the fuck up.
Thank you-
Whit