Apologies: To Chuck Palahniuk & Jim Uhls, whose characters these are.
*****
The telephone book landed on my stomach with a thud. An eight pound wake up call courtesy of Tyler Durden. I swore at him with what breath I had left.
"Good morning sunshine." He hovered above me, being much too chipper for whatever time this was.
"Why did you do that for?" I flung the white pages to the floor.
"You need to do a little research today. Hence the phone book."
"Do it yourself." I crawled back under the covers. Too early to be bothered today.
He flipped the pages until he found what he was looking for, and slid the book under my face. "Point to something."
I grinded my finger into the page, not looking up.
He brought the book up to his face and read. "St. Martin's Church. 124 Stuart Avenue. Was that so hard?"
A church? I sat up. "What are you going to do?"
"It's not what I'm going to do, it's what you are going to do." He crouched down to my eye level. I felt a sermon coming on. "Who was religion invented for?"
"Invented?"
"Yes. Who gains the most from a promise of eternal peace in a galaxy far, far away? What sort of life needs to be justified by saying things will be better when you're dead?"
He paused to let his words to sink in. I just stared blankly at him, waiting to see where this was going.
"Heaven exists for the poor, the crippled, the retarded - excuse me, mentally handicapped. Saps who got a bum deal and can't do a thing about it. So they're allowed to struggle through life, being told it's okay, it's all in God's plan. You'll get yours eventually, but only after you're in the ground."
So he had a point. It was what he might be planning that worried me. "And?"
"If that makes them feel better, I've no problem with it. Distraction can be a good thing when you weigh 600 lbs and are on welfare. What bothers me is that they have to pay for it."
"It doesn't cost anything to go to church. Well, there's the collection plate, and that's voluntary."
I had hardly finished speaking when he jumped in. "Who pays for the church buildings themselves? The stained glass windows? Don't tell me those things can be bought at Home Depot for wholesale. If religion's for the poor, why would you need to waste money on decorations? Why not preach in a basement, or on the streets, and give the money to a soup kitchen or something."
"So, what are you planning on doing?" I gave up trying to rationalize a long time ago.
"Vandalism, natch." He pulled a green rock the size of a football from his pocket. I had to laugh. How he had gotten it to fit in his jeans was a mystery. I leaned in closer and saw that the green colour was actually a bunch of twenties glued onto the surface.
Tyler rotated his craft project in his hands. "A $380 present for one stained glassed window. It'll teach them not to waste their money on meaningless trifles."
It seemed a like a waste of money to me, but there was no talking out of anything in this house. And if I've learned anything by now, it's always best to stay with Tyler's program. Even his most insane ideas had some value. "Okay, just let me get my pants on."
The End.