The brown coated Chicago PD officer handed the background information forms to James before he even said any words.
"This something that can give me some kind of big break?” Asked James with a lazy defeated smirk as he sat in front of an unnaturally neatly ordered blue metal desk.
“Trust me. You don’t want the big break kid. It just means less work, less time with the kids and more headache for only marginally more pay,” replied the officer, giving a mini soapbox speech before getting to the point.
"This is from the Charleston case,” he continued as he took a seat on the black plastic padded office chair.
"That's the one about the hit on the lawyer who was going to convict the guy right? The one where he had a hired man shoot him before they could get a verdict?"
“Yeah. We got the details and everything on that situation and it looks like that case is going to be open and shut with an even more severe verdict. The defendant wasn't so smart on that one."
"Yeah?" James said disinterestedly as he shuffled through the papers he was handed.
“Yeah, but in the process of finding the hired gun that he used, we did background criminal checks on different people that he was in contact with over the last couple years or so. We found the guy he used fairly easily. In the process, we also found information on other guys that we checked up on that had limited association with the defendant in that case. That information in your hand is about one of the guys that we followed up on. Has a criminal record--couple years back--drunk driving and resisting arrest. Not involved in any violent activity but..."
"But big enough of a deal so that we should bring him in. Right?"
James put the papers down. He pulled out a cigarette.
"You kidding me?" The officer asked James in clear reference to the cigarette. “When!"
"Last week.” James said in reply, slurring his words through the cigarette between his lips and shaking his head. "Got in a fight with Carol. I thought—I needed—might as well just have one smoke--just one. Slippery slope that is.”
The big bellied officer crossed his arms and tightened his lips together. He leaned back against the wall and looked at James with a disappointed, judgmental scowl.
James scoffed at his expression.
"Ex-smokers like yourself are always the worst and most annoying when it comes to trying to help me quit you know.”
He waved the match out with his right hand.
—
That same day, not more that a few blocks away, something seemingly everyday happened: A man passed out a flyer to another man sitting on a park bench.
The man on the bench flinched after seeing that the man passing out the flyer was wearing a suit--suits reminded him too much of the two types of people he didn't want to see right now: Jehovah's Witnesses or IRS agents.
Al read the heading: Help Us Protect and Preserve Portage Park and a little bit of the text: The Chicago Park District is the oldest and largest park district in America. We spend the most per capita on parks--more than any other city in the United States. However, we still need your private support to keep Chicago…
"I didn't know that," he muttered out loud half sarcastically.
He flipped the leaflet over expecting to find a JW.org logo and a QR code, and then quickly realized that of course it wouldn't have that on it.
Why did that pop into his mind?
The style and even the size didn't resemble one of the witness tracts. He was angry that he was thinking about those things again. Of course, he didn't like thinking about those things.
Al lifted a cigarette up to his mouth between his ring and middle finger.
He reached for his pocket with his left hand and pulled out a plastic turquoise lighter. He flicked the flame on, let it go out, flicked it on again, let it go out, and finally put it back into his pocket.
This wasn't the first time he had done this--in fact it may have been well over fifty times by that time.
Usually he would be in private when he would do this strange ritual, but certainly a couple of times over the last few years he had done it in public and was sure that onlookers thought him to be quite strange, or at least a person that had a quirky idea of how to quit smoking. The fact of the matter was, he actually had never smoked before, but he almost always kept a cigarette pack in his right pocket and his lighter in his left pocket. What onlookers didn't really realize that what he was really doing was toying at the idea of spiritual suicide—the cigarettes being the ‘suicide pill’ that he would always carry around. He never wanted to smoke, but figured that if he had started, perhaps he would get addicted and finally be deep enough into the world so that he could never turn back—a point of no return.
The idea came from the fact that he was often tired of his conscience pricking at him. He was tired of thinking that with some changes he might actually be able to come back to the congregation. He didn't like that he was reminded of the witnesses by that stranger passing him a pamphlet.
He thought the cigarettes, or at least the starting of the habit of smoking cigarettes, to be the final straw to help him realize that he was too far gone and couldn't come back ever. He viewed it as the flick of the switch that would put him out of the truth forever so that he would no longer have to debate in his mind whether he could come back.
He looked around from side to side while sitting on the bench by the lake that sunny day. Despite the good weather, there weren't that many people out and about in the park.
Slowly his mind uncontrollably reflected back to a day much colder than that Spring day—a day when the weather around him was far more awful.
He liked those cold awful winter Chicago days when the world and the environment outside of him was as awful as how he felt inside (instead of days like this when the world outside was pressuring him to be happy although his stubborn insides did not want to comply).
On sunny days like this, he felt as if the world around him was either mocking him or putting on a dishonest front.
—
He hadn't been to any meetings in some years, but it had actually only been three months since he had been out in field service.
It was snowy that day – especially snowy. It was a Tuesday morning.
He was dressed with a tie and a dress shirt, but he didn't want to go to work that day. He wasn't worried about getting fired—there was probably no one in the office that day that could fire him anyways.
Strangely, he would've preferred if he were in some situation where he might have gotten fired for skipping work this day--at least that would have been something. But instead, he knew in all likelihood his absence from work that day would probably go unnoticed. The world would spin on indifferently.
On his walk out the door he thought about how no one really loved him, but also how no one really hated him either. He looked down, squinted his eyes and thought about how most people didn't really care one way or another about him. What they felt toward him was worse than hate—indifference.
He was thinking about that, and then nothing at all, and then that again when finally he looked up and saw himself in front of the Kingdom Hall door. He didn't plan on going there.
How did he get there?
He had already known by the time he had left the door that he wasn't going to work, but he ended up there on autopilot.
After he finally did turn the knob and hear the strangely squeaky crunch of the icy door, he smelled a smell that he hadn't smelled in years—and it almost brought him to tears.
It had the same smell as it did back home: Pine-Sol.
He knew that, of course, not every Kingdom Hall in the entire country used Pine-Sol, or even if they did, not all Halls smell like that.
Or did they?
And why hadn’t he ever smelled Pine-Sol in the last couple of years when he hadn’t been going to meetings? Had he never been in a bathroom, house or kitchen that also used Pine-Sol in those three years? That seemed highly unlikely, yet he figured that if he had been in a house that smelled like Pine-Sol it should have triggered the memory of a Kingdom Hall at that point. He remembered no such experience over the last couple of years.
—
The first voice Al heard after walking into the Kingdom Hall that morning was a prepubescent one.
"Salutations!" Greeted the young brother very enthusiastically.
Al didn't really notice that the form of greeting was strange. Instead he was taken aback from the fact that a witness was actually talking to him.
"Hey," he replied automatically and breathlessly.
"I don't know what is wrong with the door. It's brand-new," the young man continued. "I think it insulates better or something so that's why they went with it. Maybe just needs a little time to break in."
Al let out a slight “Huh?" but the young brother probably didn't notice it as he had already turned to look at a hatted older sister giving him a slightly stern look. The older sister looked at Al and gave half of a smile.
—
"Do you have any arrangements?" The brother asked Al.
Al found it strange that he was naturally assumed to be a brother.
He was wearing a tie – not quite dressed as a Bible student walking in off of the street would look like– but he could have been sure that he didn't carry the air of a brother either.
He found it strange also that the young brother never really asked if he was visiting from somewhere. Maybe it was a congregation that was used to visitors – but even so—
"No, I don't mind putting in a long day today," replied Al, playing the part he was assigned.
He wasn't sure why he didn't plug in a bailout option or say that he only wanted to be out for a few hours. He had never even been a pioneer before even when he was an active witness in good standing.
Playing this part would've been unnatural, but right now for some reason his filling the role of a pioneer felt so easy for him—perhaps it was because he was so used to acting like he was someone that he wasn't anyways. Undoubtedly, the fact that he fell into the role with such ease and confidence—and hardly without effort—made his cover even harder to notice.
It wasn't until the third door that someone actually answered and he got a chance to do some actual preaching. He was assigned to work with the young brother.
"Good morning, my name is Al and this is my friend--" Al realized mid-sentence that he had never actually asked the younger brother's name.
"Philip," the young brother chimed in.
The householder stared with one hand on the edge of the door and her mouth tightly shut. She looked back-and-forth slowly from Al to Philip, waiting for one of them to say something interesting (or really anything at all).
"Oh really?" said Al back to Philip. "That's my last name. Well sort of."
Despite the awful presentation, the householder actually took the magazines. When she read the cover talking about how to make a marriage work she changed her visage completely. She smiled and said 'thank you' before closing the door.
Al was strangely relieved when Philip fumbled up his presentation at the next door even worse than he did at the last. This time they didn’t take the magazines.
“Well, I really screwed that one up. Wasn’t able to be as lucky as you were there,” Philip said after walking away from the door with Al.
Al thought it was strange that Philip used the word ‘lucky.’
It occurred to Al that this young brother was still young and inexperienced many ways.
"Hey man, it happens. Keep it up, and you'll do better at the next-door."
As soon as Al had said those words, he realized that he was a fake witness encouraging a real one. He liked the feeling, and felt ashamed at the same time. He also felt strangely relieved that he felt the shame as if it were reminder that he was not so far off after all—a strange obscure reminder that he was still redeemable.
—
Two months after the sunny day he spent alone in the park, and five months after walking to the Kingdom Hall alone that snowy Chicago day, he found himself alone again in a dingy looking Spanish café waiting for a client.
When the man walked in, he spotted Al out right away. Al assumed it was because he was the only one in a fancy suit—really he was the only one formally dressed at all in the entire café.
The client sat down on the wooden chair opposite to Al without even asking if he was the person he was to meet.
"Pleasure to meet you. James Williams,” the bearded man said extending his hand for a shake.
"Al Phillips," Al said returning the introduction.
The sales pitch was normal—Al had given it hundreds of times—but the client seemed a little more bored than usual.
The food was above average—especially good for that café. Al ordered a burger and the client ordered a salad.
Finally, after Al picked up the bill, the client sat back in his chair and smirked a relieved smile.
"Mind if I smoke?” Asked the client.
Al looked from side to side. "Can you?"
“Can you believe that this is actually one of the few restaurants in the nation where they still allow smoking. That's actually why I picked it,” the client said as he was pulling out his pack of Marlboros.
The waitress came back with the credit card before Al could give an answer of permission to James, although it didn't seem like James was really waiting for an answer anyways—he already had the cigarette in his mouth.
"You know," Al began, "I have this weird ritual that I do every once in a while where I put a cigarette into my mouth, pretend I'm gonna light it, then don't light it, and do it on and on again before actually putting it away."
"Doesn't sound weird to me. I tried every kind of weird method out there to get me to stop smoking."
"I don't smoke. I've never smoked once," Al replied.
James looked at him dead in the eye and then waved his match out.
"Well…that actually changes it completely. Now I would say that's probably one of the weirdest habits I've ever heard of."
Al forced a smile and James pulled the cigarette away from his lips to continue speaking unmuffled.
“You know, it's not the cigarettes that kill you. It's the smoke.
“What?”
“It’s the smoke that kills you."
Al thought about for a few seconds, while James looked on thinking that it was strange that Al would find that statement to be so profound.
Finally, Al opened his wallet to put his credit card away when James caught a glance of his “No Blood” card.
"Hey. Are you one of those Jehovah's Witnesses?" James asked.
"Well..." Al muttered putting his wallet away in his coat pocket and raising his eyebrows.
"I hope you don't mind me being so direct but...well...my wife Carol has been studying with the witnesses. We'd already been having problems knowing how to communicate and work things out for the first year of marriage and I didn't like the idea of her getting into a new religion or something, so I--I got in a bit of a fight with her about it. It was after that fight that I started smoking again after nine years clean!”
Al looked at James blankly, waiting for him to continue.
“I will say this,” James continued. “Although I can't say I agree with all their teachings, the witnesses are rather model citizens. And if you don't mind me going one step further: what I know about you doesn't exactly line up with what I know about Jehovah's Witnesses."
Al crossed his arms and slouched back in his chair. "You know a couple of years ago I once heard somebody else say more or less those exact same words to me and my friend at the time. But if you want to know a secret—not everything is as it seems with me. I'm not really one of Jehovah's Witnesses."
Al paused for a second, then suddenly sat up very straight.
"Wait. What do you mean, 'what you know about me?' How would you know anything about me?"
James scratched his beard and readjusted himself in the black painted wooden chair.
“Well, if you want to know secret, not everything is as it seems with me either. I'm not really a client.”
James flipped out his Chicago PD police badge onto the table, and then refolded it back into his pocket a couple seconds later.
"You're actually under arrest for tax evasion. Considering the amount that you owe the IRS, you're actually well within felony-crime territory."
Al squinted his eyes and somehow slimly managed to not bother saying what he wanted to say.
You've got to be kidding me.
"I hope you don't mind me sitting through the entire lunch and having you do that whole sales pitch and whatnot. I hadn't worked undercover for quite some time and...well...honestly I just need to get my lunch at twelve noon sharp. I do appreciate you picking up the bill. Hope you don't feel sore about that. If so, I can pay my share. No hard feelings. Just doing my job."
Al didn't try to wiggle his way of this situation.
Why didn’t he?
He knew that normally he would.
Things were different this time.
He didn’t have the slightest hard feeling at all about the officer using the last thirty minutes or so to share lunch with him.
He held back the inclination to ask whether he had to be handcuffed or not or if there were other officers waiting outside to take him to the nearest police station at that moment.
Instead he asked something completely different.
“No no hard feelings at all. But, if you don't mind me asking how are things between you and your wife now?”
“I'm sorry?”
“There was an article a couple of months back in the Watchtower that talked about getting through the first year of marriage, learning how to communicate...all that stuff. I don't know, maybe it could be worth checking out.”
James squinted at the abruptness of the topic.
"Why would I read one of your weird witness magazines when I can just look up what the experts know when they are talking about marriage. Why should I get all religious on that subject?"
Al was quiet for a few seconds before he answered.
"You're an officer and you see that they are model citizens. There's got to be something to that right?"
Al didn’t think it was the best reply possible, but James’ at least looked down thoughtfully and then, after a few seconds, back up at Al. He had nothing to say in reply.
Al thought about how strange it was that he was witnessing to him there in that situation of all situations. He also thought about how good it felt to say those words instead of anything else that he could've been saying at that moment to save his own skin.
James was still silent.
“Okay…okay let's do this," Al finally continued. “This time I’ll face it. Fine. Let’s get down to the police station and get this handled," Al said calm as a stone.
They both got up without a word and headed out the door.
James got ready to light another cigarette the second they stepped outside.
Al paused briefly to shove the turquoise lighter and pack of cigarettes into the trash can by the cafe entrance before pushing the cafe entrance door open and walking with his chin up towards the back seat of the police car.
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