Saint Paul - Part II

No one noticed them go in, Paul made sure of that. They’d walked through the front door all button down shirts and khaki pants, at the tail end of the youth group just returning from good deed doing. The group went right, Paul and Adam went left, and spent the next several hours lying very low. Paul told me later that Adam had wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons, but Paul told him that game was for pussies. Paul read. Adam sat.

An hour into the wait, Adam needed to use the restroom. “Man, I gotta go!” he pleaded with Paul.

“You should have gone before you left home,” Paul sneered. “Suck it up!”

Finally, the office staff left. The janitor came in and made his slow rounds through the sanctuary, across the fellowship hall, in and out of the offices. It was well past dark when he finished, turned out the last light, and locked the glass doors at the front of the church behind him. Paul and Adam waited for another half hour before they dared to unfold themselves from the supply closet.

“I can’t feel my legs!” Adam whined, “And I still have to whiz!” They stopped at the men’s room and then, quietly, walked down the hall to the office. Adam instinctively reached for the light switch.

“What are you doing?” Paul hissed, and grabbed Adam’s hand. He pulled a penlight from his pocket. “Use this.” Adam turned on the penlight and, careful to point it at the floor, walked to the cabinet where the money was kept. He took the small metal box from the shelf and sat it on the desk.

“Wait!” Paul said, “I heard something.” They stood still, their bodies tense with anticipation. “You’d better go check,” he said to Adam.

“Why me?”

“You have the flashlight, you dope.”

Adam pursed his lips and then reluctantly walked down the hall. He returned within minutes, visibly relaxed.

“Nothing,” he said. “Now let’s get out of here.” He started to pick up the box from the desk when Paul stopped him.

“Aren’t you going to check it? I’m not stealing an empty box,” he said.

“Good thinking,” Adam grinned. “Look at that, not even a lock on it! Man, these people are dumb!” He opened the box and a cloud of dust blew up in his face.

“What the hell!” he yelled. “What the hell!” The dust was in his eyes, on his hands, in his nose, and on his tongue. “What the hell?” he repeated, softer this time. The dust on his tongue was sweet. He licked his lips.

“Kool-Aid?” he said to himself and then, louder – “Kool-Aid? Paul? The money is covered in Kool-Aid?” He flicked the penlight over the doorway where Paul had been standing, but Paul wasn’t there.

Adam ran to the hallway just in time to see Paul slide a metal pole through the outside handles. A pole that he had brought earlier that evening, when he’d filled the money box with his favorite cherry Kool-Aid, and carefully rigged it to explode when the lid was opened.

“I told you I ain’t stealing from no goddamn church!” Paul yelled through the glass.

“You asshole!” Adam started screaming. “You ASSHOLE, PAUL!” he banged his Kool-Aid hands against the glass doors, red spittle flying. “YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!” He started crying, his tears leaving tracks down his cheeks. His face was against the glass, and Paul brought his closer, so they were nose to nose. “Watch out,” Paul said, “That shit stains.”

Over Paul’s shoulder, a few blocks away, Adam could see the blue lights of police cars. He could hear the sirens.

Paul raised a single, unstained middle finger to the glass, and was gone.