THE MANGROVES OF LOLLARD LANE
(A short story by Terry Edwin Walstrom)
____________
“Oh, Christ—just what I needed this morning—Jehovah’s fucking Witnesses!”
68 year old Cicely Mangrove moaned aloud, keeping a keen and spiteful eye fixed on neighborhood intruders organizing themselves into pairs outside. How could a person ever relax on a Sunday morning?
“Nathaniel, come down here right away, please!”
“I’m shaving. . .” echoed her husband’s voice from the floor above.
“Stop shaving and get down here. You-know-who are back to peddle their bullshit. I don’t want to talk to them.”
____
Mockingbirds swayed warily among the tree branches above Cicely Mangrove’s garden terrace on Lollard Lane. The sound of car door’s slams and voices cascaded against the brick sidewalk and crept in through a raised window were Cicely sat at her breakfast table smoking the last inch of her hand rolled cigarette.
Cherry blossoms stirred like mad pinwheels in her front yard as two carloads of religious fanatics turned the corner and glided to a halt next to two other similar vehicles. These were drab sedans with drab contents.
Outside the window overlooking the crisp green lawn and standard picket fence, eight serious religious folks divided up responsibilities and split into couples, each headed in diverse directions. A pudgy man in an ill-fitting suit and a mature woman in unfashionable vintage clothing crept passed the garden gate to approach the Mangrove’s house.
The door buzzer sounded out a ridiculous staccato pattern, as though pranksters were amusing themselves mindlessly.
“Nathaniel, get your ass down here right now!”
“Why are you shouting—I’m standing right here?” An average-looking man in khaki slacks, Hawaiian shirt and leather house shoes stood wiping a cup towel across his face where tufts of creamy shaving foam still clung. He was average-looking, with a high forehead and mischievous smile.
The door buzzer repeated the annoying pattern once more.
“Are you going to get that, or do I have to call the cops again like last time?”
____
Cicely Mangrove was a petulant woman of variable moods; all of them dark. Telephone solicitors and religious peddlers were high on her arousal scale. Neighborhood scuttlebutt held her to be manic-depressive, but her husband assured everyone who knew her it was nothing of the sort.
“Cicely is just plain mean, that’s all. She doesn’t like people. I think it’s kinda cute—once you get used to it.”
Nathaniel Mangrove, or “Natty” as his friends preferred, was well-known to be even-tempered and good-humored in stark contrast to his wife’s incessant grouchiness.
They had met at an art gallery opening eighteen years earlier. Natty had quipped something provocative just as Cicely was biting into a hors d’oeuvre. She immediately choked and spat spinach and scurried off to the bathroom not to be seen again. It was an auspicious beginning, fraught with bad-timing and farce, not unlike their marriage.
____
Just as the persistent couple jabbed at the door buzzer for the third time, the broad oak door opened wide. Nathaniel Mangrove filled the doorway with a quizzical presence and lifted eyebrows.
“Oh heck—Hi, I’m Gus Womper and this is my wife, Lorry. We’re in your neighborhood with a group of ministers this morning, offering a message of—“
“Of total BULLSHIT!” The wail burst forth from inside the Mangrove’s living room.
Cicely Mangrove hovered behind her husband not three feet back, but her voice projected clear down to the mailbox in front of Mrs. Vandersloot’s duplex at the end of the block.
“Please forgive my wife for that outburst. She hasn’t felt too sociable since . . . um. . . birth. Her birth.”
Immediately, the reddened face of Mrs. Mangrove popped into view as she administered a hip thrust sideways, jostling her husband against the doorjamb.
“I’ll call the cops if you don’t get off my property in the next five seconds—you hear me?”
Natty Mangrove, in one smooth, well-practiced movement, encircled his wife’s neck with a wrestling hold he frequently referred to as a “half-nelson.” He pulled her aside and spoke soothingly in measured tones.
“Now Cissy, it doesn’t cost you a cent to extend hospitality to strangers at our door. Settle down or I’ll switch to that sleep-hold that worked so well at the Anderson’s party last Christmas. Understood?”
The half-bent wife tapped her husband’s back three times in a frantic gesture of compliance and immediately he relaxed his grip. In no time at all the color returned to her pale face as she stood huffing and puffing like a mugging victim.
“I’m Nathaniel Mangrove and this is my bride, Cicely. Don’t take my wife too seriously. She has some ‘issues’ with intrusions into her daily schedule. The two of us are in couple’s therapy and our task for the week is to engage others in pleasantries. Won’t you both please come in and take the weight off your feet?”
____
An awkward silence had settled in to the Mangrove’s living room. Two couples had arranged themselves like department store manikins around a coffee table in stiff postures of stressed body language.
Plastic ice tea cups rested on cork coasters untouched. A dish of cashews and peanuts rested in the center of a lazy Susan unmolested. A neighbor’s dog could be heard yapping incessantly several doors down and the faint rumble of a lawnmower competed with the wind chimes suspended from the Chandler family’s kitchen window—a present from their son-in-law back in Toluca Lake.
“So, here we all are. You were about to share some good news with my wife and I, if I’m not mistaken, Mr. Whomper—right?”
Gus and Lorry Whomper, alert as pet shop puppies, were busily inspecting the interior of the Mangrove’s home with slack-jawed wonderment. The couple absent-mindedly attuned to a channel inside their minds quite impossible for Nathaniel Mangrove to fathom. Mr. Whomper spoke in the cheerful voice of a vacuum cleaner salesman. It was a practiced cadence of lilting rhythms and improbable optimism.
“Yes, Sir—Lorry and myself are ministers sharing an important message of coming destruction to most of the earth’s vast population of non-believing, Satan-influenced, selfish and willful goats. This will be you and your wife’s final warning before complete and total doom takes you down in the day of Jehovah’s wrath.” With that, he went back to inspecting the premises like a TV detective keen for clues.
Cicely Mangrove’s lips puckered into a lemon-sour pout as if she could taste the words of Gus Womper’s sermonette. She opened her mouth to speak—but, faster than a flash—Natty jumped in with a speech of his own.
“Whoa—take it easy, Gus. I invited you into our home as a demonstration of sociable grace. What in the world makes you think your doom-sayings are ‘good news’ to my wife and me?”
Lorry Womper’s eyes flickered like a battery-operated toy with fresh double AA batteries.
“Oh, that’s just the words we’re taught to use, Mr. Mangrove. It’s really good news for us.” She grinned.
Gus widened his pasted-on smile.
“We figure you folks aren’t ever going to study the Bible with us. But we’re still obligated to give fair warning. It’s because—well, when you are destroyed at Armageddon, we’ll get to move in to your house! Lorry and I have had an eye on your swimming pool for ages now!” As Gus began to chuckle, Lorry elbowed him in the ribs teasingly.
Cicely Mangrove gave a slow-burn turn of her head toward Natty and lifted her eyebrows with a mute, “Now do you see why I hate these idiots” expression on her twitching face.
Natty shrugged complacently.
“Uh—when is this ‘good news event’ going to strike us down, Gus? Do I have time finish the shave you interrupted when you were leaning on our door buzzer?”
“Gosh, it ought to be here by the end of the year—at least that’s what the Bible indicates.”
“Says who?” Cicely growled.
“The Watchtower magazine.” Lorry proudly replied.
“Hear that, Natty? The same old happy horseshit they’ve been peddling since Grandma was a girl. They just never learn from all past flops, flaps and fuck-ups.”
Gus and Lorry frowned disapprovingly. “Tsk tsk tsk.”
Natty puffed out his cheeks and rolled his eyes. Cicely snuffled.
Gus reached into a brown simulated leather book bag beside his chair and rummaged around. Presently he tugged out a small green folder.
“Surprise—surprise! I’ll bet you haven’t seen our new contract—have you?”
Natty and Cicely glanced sideways at each other and leaned forward to scrutinize the formal printed papers Gus held in front of him resembling a lease agreement.
“Tell them, Lorry—it’s your turn.”
Cicely removed the papers from Gus’s hand as Natty leaned closer and they both began silent reading as Lorrie spoke.
“That’s the new standard contract offered by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. We guarantee in writing that Armageddon will come no later than the middle of October next year.”
“Or what?” Cicely and Natty spoke simultaneously.
“Or else we promise to shut down our religious activities and stop our preaching and publishing work all over the world. If you sign this, you agree to study and get baptized . . . until then.”
“For how long?”
“Why, um—forever.”
Four people stared at each other in silence.
“You two are barking mad. You and your crazy-assed religion have finally gone off the cliff at Sanity Cove.”
Gus and Lorrie began laughing and exchanging knowing glances.
“That’s what everybody says at first. We know we’ve made mistakes in the past. Do you think we haven’t noticed how often we’ve been wrong?” Gus chuckled and shook his head gleefully.
“We’re as sick of preaching false prophesies as everybody else is of hearing them. That’s why our Governing Body has come up with this iron-clad contract. We’re laying it all on the line once and for all.” Lorrie jabbed the air with her finger for emphasis.
An expression of astonishment hung from Natty and Cicely’s face like rumpled curtains. They sat shaking their heads like wobbly toys in the back of an automobile.
“You’re telling us you are challenging God Almighty to ‘shit or get off the pot’?”
Lorrie turned and offered her husband a mock-expectant expression—then both turned and nodded broadly in an exaggerated “Yes!”
“It’s sort of like extortion, I suppose. But, Jehovah is very jealous of his Name and reputation. This is the only workable strategy of getting Him to dig down deep and do what is necessary. Don’t you see—it is pure genius on the part of our Governing Body! Otherwise, this door to door ministry will go on for who knows how many eons?”
Cicely, still shaking her head with improbable internal dialogue, stood and walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door and bent forward scanning a shelf inside.
“You folks want a beer?”
Lorrie and Gus widened their eyes at each other like naughty children rewarded with chocolate.
“Sure—we don’t mind if we do. Thanks, Cicely.”
Four people sat quietly sipping and nodding . . . sipping and nodding.
______
Spring arrived and the sound of newborn kittens, chirping fledglings, and giggling children danced in the air. The Mangroves attended their local Kingdom Hall regularly and never missed the opportunity to witness to friends, neighbors or the FedEx driver. Weekends arrived with clockwork regularity and the calendar pages flipped and fell like autumn leaves in October’s wind.
The summer had brought just enough rain to satisfy the neighbors with the well-manicured lawns. The onset of winter was gentle. Very little snow came toward the end of the year, but enough to satisfy the dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists.
By December’s last tolling bell the year ended and the giant glowing ball in Times Square dropped with the absolute certainty of Einstein’s famous equation.
The New Year arrived.
____**____
Mangroves and Whompers ran into each other occasionally in the post office and grocery store. A formal nod was exchanged and comfortable grin of familiar recognition. No words were spoken or greetings exchanged. Knowing glances said everything needing to be acknowledged.
Cicely might notice that Lorrie was sporting a new tattoo and her neckline had plunged even more since the last time they’d passed each other in front of Wal-Mart. Gus had lost a lot of weight since the divorce. His new sport convertible was often observed roaring down Lollard Lane with a trim blonde next to him, or a fancy redhead.
Signage had come down from all the Kingdom Halls in the city. Word was, the same was true of Watchtower headquarters, factory and farm. Service centers around the world had been sold off and missionaries dispersed—some volunteering for the Red Cross.
Former zealots sought out former members once disfellowshipped from their family for apologies and reconciliation. Christmas trees, once banned from windows, bedazzled neighborhoods and little witness children now knocked on doors with raucous “Trick or Treat” on Halloween.
All in all, the contract had been fulfilled with very little sadness or recriminations. If any emotion was obvious, it would have to be said to be that of overwhelming relief.
___
The pews in the churches of Lollard lane sported many new members that year. There were happy faces, crucifixes and loud singing on a grander scale than ever before. Flags got snappy salutes, voting was up in local precincts, and the pregnancy rate among High-Schoolers stood at an all-time high.
A southerly breeze swept past the hollyhocks and jacarandas along the sidewalks of Lollard Lane as the mockingbirds swayed cheerily among tree branches above Cicely Mangrove’s garden terrace.
Cherry blossoms stirred everywhere like mad pinwheels in her front yard. Anyone who passed by the Mangrove household was sure to hear a loud shout from inside the kitchen window.
“Hi there—how are you folks?”
This, of course, was invariably accompanied by a wave of the hand and a broad, satisfied smile.
Cicely Mangrove was finally able to relax.
____THE END____