Richard was a Heretic

Richard was a heretic. He was persecuted by the Church.

On that morning his alarm clock rang as usual. He glanced at the red LED readout on his watch. 11 a.m. Tuesday, March 10, 1983. That meant he had to be at work in an hour.

Richard walked somnambulantly down to the dorm showers. He knew how to adjust the dials precisely to avoid being either chilled to the bone or scalded to the point of his skin peeling off. But this morning, no matter how furiously he adjusted them, the water shot out as pure steam heat and then, as he worked them urgently, as cold as a glacier.

He jumped out. His skin felt as if he had been beaten with a ping-pong paddle.

He knew the Church was behind it.

Shuddering and shivering, Richard toweled off and dressed in his rust-colored McDonald’s uniform. He hated the hat that looked like an entire hamburger resting on his head, but it was part of the uniform. He put it on.

As he crossed the street with the walk signal, a huge yellow Lincoln turned right and came toward him fast. Richard leapt to the curb. His hamburger hat fell into a puddle in the gutter. As the Lincoln sped away, he saw the white strip of a clerical collar containing the fat neck of the driver.

Richard shook his head, retrieved his hat, and put it on. It felt wet on his head, which disgusted him. He kept walking.

Usually he cooked the hamburgers, while a gaggle of pimply-faced high school girls took orders. It was simple, repetitive work, and his mind wandered. but at one point he noticed a long line forming with no one at the counter. He left the grill, knocked on the door of the women’s bathroom, called out “Hurry up!,” and went to the counter.

“Quarter Pounder with Cheese,” announced a bulbous woman in a dress decorated with yellow roses.

When he put the order on her tray, she said: “I ordered a regular hamburger.”

“No,” Richard said, struggling to care, “a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.”

“I won’t pay for it,” she declared, her voice getting higher.

“Ma’am,” said Richard, still attempting to care, “this is exactly what you ordered.”

“Where’s your manager? I won’t tolerate this insolence.”

The manager apologized to the lady in the dress of yellow roses. She watched with satisfaction as he told Richard: “You’ve got to be more careful with the orders, son, or you’re gonna have to find another job.”

“The Church sent you, didn’t it?” Richard asked her. She looked at him oddly, and retreated with her Quarter Pounder with Cheese.

When Richard got back to the grill, the hamburgers were burning.

In the mail that day back at the dorm was a thick manila folder postmarked Vatican City. Feeling his face getting hot, Richard thumbnailed it open and pulled out a large, yellow, somber-looking paperback. On the cover in small letters was printed: “John Paul II, Supreme Pontiff: Encyclical Letter Contra Ricardum. To His Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate, the Priests, the Religious Families, the Sons and Daughters of the Church and to All Men and Women of Good Will, Condemning the Abominable Heresies of Richard.” He paged through it, but it was written in ecclesiastical Latin, and he had gotten a C- in that course last semester. He dropped the book and its wrapper in the mail center garbage.

Richard walked over to the girls’ dorm. The weather was cool and unobtrusive, and as he walked, he started to feel lighter.  On the third floor, he rapped on a door and presently a blonde with a pink sweater opened it. Her eyes were half-closed with mascara, and her jaws worked busily on a wad of gum.

“Let’s go to the movies,” Richard said.

“What’s playing?”

“I don’t know.”

When they were walking in the bright lights of the student union, past yellow chairs and huge noisy boys in letter jackets, he leaned over and told the blonde in a small voice: “I’m a heretic. I’m being persecuted by the Church.”

“What?”

“I’m a heretic. They’re after me, the Church. They lied to Jan Hus and ambushed him. They burned Michael Servetus at the stake.”

“Who are they?”

“Who were they. Heretics. They were persecuted by the Church.”

She moved her gum to the other cheek and announced: “You’re so dumb.” Her voice was dragged and flat. “The Church doesn’t fight for what it believes.”

“It’s fighting me. Let’s sit near the back door, okay?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you’re funny.”

“I’m not funny. I’m serious.”

She sighed. They were at the door of the movie theater. “What’s playing?”

“I don’t know,” said Richard. They went in.

After the movie, Richard dropped her off at her dorm and walked alone in the cool night. It was dark now and he walked over to the arboretum, where there were no streetlights. He couldn’t see very well, but he knew where he was going.

The church was casting long grotesque shadows in the twilight, shadows of the twisting spire and gothic fakery. He smelled incense and shuddered at the thought of what had gone on inside.

He walked quickly up the concrete steps of the church. Its big wooden doors were locked.

Richard stood there for a long time, a bit short of breath. He stared at the big wooden crosses on the doors, and the gnarled shadows.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and the author of 30 non-fiction books. Sometimes he writes stories that mean nothing, go nowhere and make no sense. He wrote the original version of this particular one in 1983. He can be reached at director@jihadwatch.org.