FORWARD

 

“When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place…And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”  Acts 2:1 & 4

 

“Then Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”  Acts 2:38

 

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wicked, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that they who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”  Romans 1:28-32

 

Although this novel is a work of fiction, still it accurately depicts some of the strange and extreme religious views and weird goings-on that take place in many of the so-called “Oneness Pentecostal Churches.”

 

“In Pentecostalism, you’re either deceiving or being deceived.”

 

“First the bait; then the hook.”

 

The author

Chapter 1

 

“Ya needs ta let Jesus inta yer heart, Wally,” Brett Fisher said as he and Walter Thomas stood out behind Ray’s Donut Shop in the small town of Atwater, California.

It was about eleven o’clock, and the temperature was already in the nineties on a typical, mid-summer San Joaquin Valley morning.     Walt had been up since three and had driven in from his apartment in Merced to start making donuts for the airmen who stopped by to pick up a dozen or so on their way to Castle Air Force Base.  Brett came in at six to man the register, wait on the counter, and help with cleaning up.

It was a six-day-a-week job that paid minimum wages to Brett, and only a little more to the manager.  Walter was the manager, but the title meant little since the only employee he had to manage was this religious fanatic who worked part time and was even now exhorting him to surrender his life to God.

As if we aren’t all at the mercy of God…if there is one, Walt thought.

Walt hated the place, and the smell of the donuts turned his stomach; especially on mornings when he was hung over.  But since he had been discharged from the Navy a few months previously, he had not been able to find a better job.

He had to scrape up enough money each month to pay his rent and make the payments on the old black Pontiac that sat close to the back door baking in the blazing sun. 

So, here he was stuck in a dead-end job and having to listen to the babblings of this religious zealot.

Walter took a drag on his cigarette and said, “That’s bullshit, Brett.  How the hell can ‘Jesus’ come into my heart?  Where is he anyway, lurking behind that bush over there?”  He pointed his tattooed arm toward some scraggly brush that was growing by an old board fence behind their cars.

At six feet five inches, Walter Thomas towered over the earnest little fellow that was gesturing excitedly as he continued his religious harangue.

A veteran of many barroom brawls, Walter was lean and tough with sharp features and a mean look.  He was heavily tattooed with a pentagram on the inside of his left forearm and a rose and a woman’s head on opposite shoulders.  A cobra was coiled menacingly on his right calf.

Like a member of the Russian mafia in London, he had vowed that he would never bow before another man or go down without a fight.  This was before he met some of the con men of the Pentecostal ministry.

“Ya shouldn’t talk that way, Wally.  Jesus wants ta come inta yer life an save ya.  Ya need to surrender ta Him an let Him give ya the Holy Ghost.”

“I don’t like friggin’ ghosts, Brett…they spook me out,” Walt scoffed as he flicked his cigarette out into the alley.  He pulled out his pack of Marlboro’s and lit up another one.  “Want one?” he offered maliciously.  Walt had a mean streak.

“No thanks, I quit after Jesus filled me with the Holy Ghost.  Ya shouldn’t smoke neither, Wally.  Them things’ll land ya in hell.”

Walter’s temper flared.  “Why don’t you take your advice and stuff it?  I’ve had about enough of your preaching.  You’d better go inside and finish cleaning up so we can close this dump up at noon and go home.”

“I’ll keep prayin’ fer ya, Wally,” Brett said and walked back toward the shop. He paused at the door and called, “I’d like ta invite ya ta my church fer Bible Study tomorrow night.”

Walt looked away.  Retarded idiot, he thought, but where else can I find someone else to work for this miserable amount of pay?

Walter Thomas was the product of the coupling of a stern German father and a stuffy English mother.  Mrs. Thomas’s pregnancy, and the subsequent birth of Walter, was a mistake that they had vowed not to repeat, but one that they had accepted as a responsibility to care for and raise, however there was little in the way of parental affection in the Thomas household.

Walter’s dad was a hard working, hard drinking authoritarian figure who had seen his wife and himself through the Great Depression and had ultimately landed a job with the California Highway Patrol in Sacramento.  About that time little Walter arrived which placed an additional burden on the Thomas’s already strained budget.

Mr. Thomas had been promoted and transferred to the Merced office as the night-shift manager.  There he operated the two-way radio system for the officers who were on the road, answered the phone, and did odd tasks like reloading bullets for the officers’ service revolvers.

 He laughed privately about putting a little extra gunpowder into some of the shells that would be used on the practice range so that an unsuspecting patrolman would receive what he called “an extra kick.”

During the day he worked a second job in the Sheriff’s Office booking in arrestees and taking their mug shots.

Young Walter was suitably impressed one day when Mr. Thomas, in a rare display of fatherly attention, took him into the Sheriff’s Office and showed him a length of rubber hose. 

This, he explained, was what they used to beat prisoners with because it left few marks.  Walter interpreted this as a warning that he had better watch his step or it might be used on him.

Then Mr. Thomas had taken him back to a part of the jail that was referred to as the “drunk tank” and ordered his son to remove his shirt.

“Put your hands up and hold onto the bars,” he commanded and then proceeded to whip Walter’s back with the rubber hose as the boy cried and pleaded for mercy.  

“Shut your mouth, and take it like a man,” Mr. Thomas screamed.  “You have to learn who the boss is in this family, and if you breathe a word of this to your mother, or anyone else, you’ll get worse.”

A couple of prisoners in an adjoining cell called out to “leave the kid alone,” but Mr. Thomas yelled to them to shut their mouths or they’d be the next ones to receive a beating.

Walt’s dad was breathing hard and sweating. To a knowledgeable adult it would have been obvious that Mr. Thomas was sexually aroused.

“Put your shirt on and go back to the front office,” Walt’s dad ordered, and Walter, with tears streaming down his face obeyed. 

This turned out to be the first of many such sadistic beatings, and

rage and resentment filled little Walter’s heart, but what could he do? I hate you, and I’ll get even someday, Walt thought.

A few years later, Mr. Thomas started his own business under the name of Merced Duplicating Service, and it proved to be a big success.  He joined the Masons and became a Shriner and was a prominent figure in local politics.  Anyone who was anyone in town knew and curried favor with Mr. Walter Thomas Sr.

There was, however, a side to his life that grew darker and darker.  As he became more successful in business, his drinking and verbal abuse increased.  He and his wife slept in separate bedrooms, and she suspected that he was consorting with a mistress as he took weekend trips to what he called “The City,” i.e. San Francisco.

Mrs. Thomas had come over “on the boat” from England when she was ten.  Her parents, along with her five sisters, settled in Columbus, Ohio, where she attended nursing school and became an RN.

Walter’s mother was a cold, aloof, English lady with a superior attitude and bearing. She made sure that little Walter was indoctrinated in proper dress, speech, and table manners. 

Later, perhaps out of boredom, she returned to nursing and became the night supervisor at the local Catholic hospital.

Mrs. Thomas was an Episcopalian, and she forced young Walter to go to Sunday School although she rarely attended church herself.  She was fond of announcing that the Episcopal Church was the official Church of England; Walt never knew if that was true or not.

Every Sunday morning she would make sure that Walter was suitably dressed and would give him two quarters to put into the Sunday School offering.

Walt would pocket the coins and then wander around frittering away the time before returning home.  He would smoke cigarettes that he had stolen from his dad’s pack of Lucky Strikes.

He also had developed a sadistic streak and would sometimes capture insects and torture them by pulling off their wings and then watch them struggle as they died. Later he graduated to killing stray cats in the neighborhood. 

A couple of times he had tossed the bodies of mutilated cats onto the front porch of old Mrs. Johnson and then hid in some bushes and laughed at her shocked reaction when she came out to get her mail.

One weekend, Mrs. Thomas discovered two quarters in the pocket of Walt’s pants as she was doing the laundry and she confronted him about it.

“Is this your Sunday School money?” she demanded.

“No, mom, I found it on the street.”

“You little liar; I know you stole it from God!”  She proceeded to give Walt a hard spanking and sent him to his room.  When her husband returned home she reported Walt’s transgression assuring another session with the rubber hose.

Walter never did particularly well in school.  He was bright enough, but he found it boring and was always getting involved in school-yard fights and spent a good deal of time in the principle’s office.

He tended to run with the wrong crowd and liked to mess around with some of the looser girls in his class which was a source of annoyance to his mother who found it contrary to the proper English morals that she was trying to inculcate into her wayward offspring.  

It wasn’t that she cared much about him, but she did not want to be embarrassed with her friends at her ladies’ club as they bragged about their children.

As for Mr. Thomas, his son’s behavior was of no interest to him as long as he didn’t disrupt his schedule and he didn’t end up in the Juvenile Detention Center.

The week after Walter graduated from high school, his parents called him into the living room, and his father asked him what he was going to do.

Walter, now seventeen, was at a loss to know what to answer so he simply said, “I don’t know.”

“Well,” Mr. Thomas said, “you’re out of school now, son, and you have to start making your own way, so you’d better decide.”

Walter retreated to his room and lay on the bed pondering his future.  After several hours he emerged and approached his mother who was sitting on the couch reading the Ladies’ Home Journal.

“I guess I’ll join the Navy, mom.”

Mrs. Thomas did not look up from her magazine.  “Fine; let us know if you need us to sign,” she replied.

Two weeks later, Walter was on a bus headed for Basic Training in San Diego.