Please vote for my JW Novel: Happiness: How To Find It!

donuthole

I'm calling on the support of the vast apostate army to help get my upcoming novel "Happiness: How to Find it" to the next round in Curiosity Quills NaNo-Virtuosos contest. Please follow this link and vote for Anthony Mathenia in the poll toward the bottom of the page. Thank you friends!

Vote here --> http://curiosityquills.com/giveaways-contests/nano-virtuosos-competition/round-one/

donuthole

Here is the first chapter for your reading pleasure:

Chapter One

Rose Gluck was holding up her floral print field service dress so as not to get it wet as she waded in the clear, cool creek water in rural Missouri on a hot day in the early summer of 1991. She smiled as the little silver minnows nipped at her bare calves and the crawdads darted backwards under rocks as she neared them. Nearby, her grandmother Imogene Ogden and her grandmother’s longtime friend Viola Whitecell relaxed on an old patchwork quilt spread on the rocky bank.

As pioneer ministers of their Jehovah’s Witness religion, Rose and the two older ladies spent their days preaching from house to house and door to door in the small town of Kent Springs. However, Rose’s favorite days were spent preaching in the outlying rural areas where they often took their lunch breaks near one of the many spring-fed creeks that carved a path through the woods and pastures of the landscape.

“Be careful not to get your dress wet,” her grandmother called out as Rose slipped a little on a large mossy stone in the creek bed.

“I am,” said Rose, steadying herself.

Viola said in a joking manner, “If you fall in again we are not going to come fish you out.”

Rose blushed thinking back to the last month when she fell in and spent the rest of her service day wrapped up in the quilt.

“Come and finish your lunch,” said her grandmother, “we’ve got to get back at it.”

Rose walked slowly out of the creek and over to the quilt, wincing as the rocks dug into the bottoms of her feet. Her grandmother handed her a sandwich wrapped in plastic wrap. When Rose opened it she sighed as she discovered that it was olive loaf, her least favorite of all the luncheon loafs.

“I’m not very hungry,” said Rose.

“Just like a young lady to be concerned about her figure,” teased Viola.

Rose really didn’t pay attention to her figure. She was naturally thin and nothing she ate seemed to change that, but even so there was really nothing to be concerned about. There was no one to look at her figure in their small country congregation except for Clinton Green, the son of their congregation’s presiding overseer. And when it came to Clinton he seemed oblivious. Rose wondered if he would even notice if she grew a second head.

“Eat. You need your energy,” her grandmother implored.

Rose tried not to wrinkle her nose too much as she bit into the sandwich. The texture of meat was slightly slimy and the cheese melted from the hot sun and the spotty air conditioning in their 1983 Pontiac Safari station wagon. She would have preferred ham, but her grandmother and Viola loved luncheon loafs which were better on their tight, fixed budget. The station wagon was a great vehicle for field service, roomy and rugged, but it wasn’t economical to drive. Their congregation’s field service territory was expansive, covering Kent Springs and several unincorporated communities in the county which required lots of driving as they canvased it. They were constantly having to fill up the gas-guzzling station wagon, though Viola helped out as much as she could by giving them a couple of dollars here and there.

“So when do you think Clinton is going to pop the question?” Her grandmother wanted to know. She asked this question often and as often as she asked it, Rose never knew how to answer. The weird thing was that they were never officially dating — they weren’t officially anything other than two people of opposite sexes in the same congregation of approximately the same age, with Rose being a year younger. Because neither could date outside the religion, their options were limited. In their religion there was no such thing as an arranged marriage, but this was the closest thing to it with everyone just assuming that they were together. Now that Rose had graduated from high school it was expected that she would marry Clinton.

Rose was okay with Clinton, he had just been appointed a Ministerial Servant and would be a good spiritual head, no doubt. However, she was never thrilled with the idea. They had never been on a real date and most of their contact outside of their congregation meetings at the Kingdom Hall had been on casual visits over at the Greens’s house. She had never been really alone with him and had no way of knowing what he would be like away from his domineering family. However, it was difficult to imagine that life would be anything more than how it was now, with her sitting idly by watching Clinton play video games and lick Cheetos dust off of his sausage sized fingers.

“Grams, I really don’t know if he will ask,” Rose said. She alternated bites of the sandwich with handfuls of plump green grapes to mask the taste of the disgusting olive loaf.

“Would you quit pressuring the girl,” Viola shot back at Rose’s grandmother. “Can we just let her enjoy one summer as a single young sister before you marry her off?”

“I just don’t want her to get too independent and spoiled,” replied Rose’s grandmother. “Besides, it doesn’t do a sister good to be alone without any direction.”

“I get along just fine without a brother,” said Viola. She had lived all of her life as a spinster and hadn’t much use for brothers outside of necessary Biblical functions, like taking the lead. Rose’s grandmother on the other hand had enjoyed a long marriage until the passing of her grandfather a few years prior.

“Well I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” said Rose. “I don’t know if Clinton even likes me.” Clinton never really seemed interested in her. There conversations were pretty much limited to passing exchanges at the Kingdom Hall, such as generic compliments on comments they offered at the meetings or talks they had given— the typical things that Witnesses said to each other when they had nothing else to say. There was no physical contact except that he had once asked her to dance at a wedding, which mainly consisted of teetering back and forth while trying to keep sufficient space between them under the watchful eyes of the congregation elder entrusted to oversee Christian conduct at the wedding reception.

“Of course he likes you,” her grandmother replied, before adding, “Besides what choice does he have?”

Viola was piqued with disapproval at her friend. “Please Imogene, you make it sound like she is the last tomato in the bargain bin.”

Rose didn’t hesitate to tease Viola. “Come on Sister Whitecell. You never know; maybe Clinton is interested in you!”

Viola guffawed, “Rest assured, little flower, that I turned down a great many and much better looking when I was in my prime.” She smoothed out the pleats on her skirt as her face shone with self satisfaction.

“And you’re still turning them down,” Rose’s grandmother chuckled.

Viola’s face wrinkled up. “If you are referring to Brother Brown, his wife has only been dead for six months and he is already jumping from congregation to congregation looking for someone else to iron his slacks and make his morning coffee. Count me out!” She sniffed.

Rose enjoyed the banter that accompanied their time in field service. The two elderly ladies were really her only friends in the congregation, but she didn’t mind. She liked their corny jokes. She liked Viola’s acerbic tongue and her grandmother’s gentle way. She felt completely comfortable to talk to them about anything — well most anything, as a girl still had to have her secrets.

With the congregation’s field service territory spread so far and wide, and long drives in between scattered rural houses, they spent more time talking to each other than to people at their doors, but that was okay by Rose. Talking to strangers at doors was always a challenge due to her shy demeanor; she liked the comfort of friends.

“We’d better get back on the clock ladies,” said Rose’s grandmother. There was no real time clock punch, but as pioneer ministers they pledged to devote at least ninety hours a month to their preaching work. Their time counting was completely on their honor, but Rose’s grandmother was very detailed with how she counted her time and often kept the other two on track when she felt that they were lingering over long on one of their breaks.

The trio got up and Rose helped Viola fold up the quilt, shaking the sand off of it, while her grandmother packed up the lunch leftovers. When her grandmother’s head was turned, Rose tossed her half eaten sandwich into the creek for the fishes and crawdads, hoping that they liked olive loaf more than she. They then walked up to her grandmother’s station wagon parked off to the side by an old concrete bridge that spanned the narrow stream. As they loaded in the wagon the ladies took care not to brush their skirts up against the wood sidewalls covered with orange backroad dust. In the driver’s seat, Rose protested as she worked to stretch her pantyhose over her still wet legs, falling back onto the bench seat with her dress hiked up just over her knees.

“Have some modesty child.” Rose’s grandmother scolded from the backseat opposite her..

“Grams, please,” Rose said. “There isn’t anyone else within ten miles who can see me.”

“The angels can see,” her grandmother said, glancing upward with a look of reverence mixed with fear.

“Then I hope they enjoy the show! They’ve seen worse whenever I get dressed,” Viola chided. “What I’d give to have legs as thin as yours Rose!” She laughed heartily along with Rose.

Even Rose’s grandmother found herself laughing despite herself as she often did when faced with her friend’s sharp wit. “Vi, you’ll be the death of me.”

“Does anyone have a call they want to do?” her grandmother asked. Most mornings they spent knocking on doors, but in the afternoons they liked to do return calls on people that they had met in the door-to-door ministry that had shown interest or they had placed their Bible literature with. It made for a more leisurely afternoon, which was helpful as the two older sisters tended to tire easily.

“We’d better go. I promised my return visit I would get there around one o’clock.”

“Who is this mysterious return visit?” her grandmother asked.

“Oh, just someone I placed a book with last Saturday. They seemed really interested.”

It was a long drive to Rose’s return visit and so they made a couple of stops at the tiny country businesses along the way to pass out tracts in order to keep their time going. When they finally pulled up to the small yellow house Rose said, “I hope he’s home; I don’t see his car.”

“He?” her grandmother questioned, stirring from her nap in the back seat.

“Come on Grams,” Rose said, “men need the truth as much as women.”

“Even more so,” Viola snipped, she didn’t have a high opinion of the opposite sex.

Rose walked over to the door of the wagon and helped her grandmother out of the backseat before nervously walking up the broken stone walkway to the house. Talking to people at the doors was always difficult for Rose and it took all she could to accomplish her ministry work. Most of the time during the week, nobody was home which caused Rose to breathe a sigh of relief, though she secretly felt guilty for it. However, when somebody did answer, Rose had to rely on the power of God’s holy spirit to help the words come out half way right.

As she neared the house, she said a quick prayer in her head asking for God’s help and then rehearsed her callback presentation. She had previously left the book, You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth with the young man, and was hoping to review some of the paragraphs of the opening chapter and see if she couldn’t start a home Bible Study out of the book.

Because the screen door was barely hanging on its hinges, Rose rapped sharply on the side of the house and waited, trying to focus on her return introduction. After a little bit of time the young man, Christopher, came to the door, rubbing his eyes, looking half asleep. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and Rose was startled to see a large tattoo on his chest of a scantily clad barbarian woman riding on a tiger. It reminded her of the picture of the harlot seated on the wild beast from the Bible book of Revelation. It was probably too much to ask that her grandmother not notice it.

This was always the awkward part for Rose. The initial call was difficult enough, but returning proved to be more difficult. Sometimes the people at the door just took her Bible literature to be nice or to get rid of her. They weren’t really interested in God or the Bible. So when she showed up again the next time, they weren’t so pleasant. However, this young man seemed different. He really seemed to listen to what she had to say as she showed him a picture of the future paradise earth that Jehovah God had promised.

“Hello Christopher. I am Rose and this is my Grandmother, Imogene. I was wondering if you had a couple of minutes and we can discuss that book I left with you last Wednesday.”

His eyes sharpened a little bit as if he recognized Rose. “Oh hello!,” he said, “come in.”

As her grandmother gave Rose a sideways glance, the two entered in the little white house following the young man. The home was pretty cluttered and every surface was littered with empty pizza boxes, McDonald’s bags, and overflowing ashtrays. The young man lead them to the living room and offered a seat on a torn up couch, marked with cigarette burns and patched with silver duct tape. He pulled a black t-shirt out of a pile of clothes and slipped into it, excusing himself as having just gotten up. For her grandmother’s sake, Rose was grateful that the young man put on his shirt until he turned around and she saw it was of Black Sabbath, one of those satanic bands that the elders were always warning them against.

Rose and her grandmother sat down and placed their book bags on the tops of their feet in the way that they did after they had once brought home a surprise roach. From her maroon leather book bag, Rose pulled out her own heavily underlined copy of the Paradise book and asked the young man if he had his available. He seemed put on the spot as he searched around the room looking for it, eventually finding it on a pile of placemats he had constructed out of empty cigarette boxes. He sat down with his book on a old recliner and stared expectantly at Rose.

While Rose fumbled to find the words, her grandmother asked him if he had an opportunity to look at the book.

The young man excused himself, “I’ve been really busy with . . . uh . . . things.” His eyes nervously darted around the room and Rose wondered what those things might be.

Rose suggested that they read the first paragraph and after they did she would ask the questions that were printed at the bottom of the page. With the first question, the young man fumbled around not knowing how to respond — it would take him time to learn. After they had spent about thirty minutes going over the next few paragraphs and asking the preprinted questions, Rose excused herself and went on to make arrangements for their next visit.

“Uh, are you busy this coming Friday?” the young man asked.

“Well I normally don’t go out on in service on Fridays; would another time work?”

The young man stammered, “Well we can do the Bible lesson next week, but I was really wondering if you wouldn’t want to go to the show. Have you seen Silence of the Lambs yet?”

Rose didn’t really know how to respond. She had never in her life been asked out on a date before and it took her a few minutes to even realize what was happening. When she finally understood, she didn’t know how to respond. Fortunately, her grandmother came to the rescue. “Rose wouldn’t see an obscene movie like that.”

The young man stammered, “I’m sorry ma’am. I didn’t think … “

“Well, we have another call to make,” the grandmother said, “It was nice meeting you.” She ushered Rose out of the house and back into the car.

As they were pulling out Rose said, “He seems really hungry for the truth.”

“No, he seems hungry for something else,” her grandmother interjected. “I don’t like the way he was looking at you.”

“Why would any guy want to look at me?” Rose said. She always felt herself rather plain and unattractive. As for what guys wanted, she was pretty sure that her long floral print dress certainly wasn’t it. She thought that maybe her grandmother was just being overly protective the way she normally was when it came to young men. She always imagined that every guy in the world wanted Rose, but the truth was that very few knew she even existed, including the guy she was supposed to be dating.

“I just don’t know what I would do if I lost you like I did your mother,” her grandmother sighed.

“So, should I not do the return visit then?” Rose asked.

Her grandmother thought for a second before replying, “You should probably turn that call over to Clinton and see if the young man is still interested with a brother calling on him.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Rose conceded, yet still she couldn’t help but to wonder about the young man. Could it be that he was really interested in her? She wondered how she would even know if a guy ever liked her like that.