Knowing the difference between right and wrong was an important precept in my early spiritual education. Basically, if anything you did broke any of the Ten Commandments or disappointed your parents then you were fucked in the eyes of God and your recording angel had tape on the whole thing. Doing right was always supposed to be accompanied by a warm rising in your chest which meant that the Holy Ghost approved of whatever thought, action or deed heralded the warm rise. We even had a song to sing in Sunday school to encourage us in our journey along the straight and narrow. The refrain follows:
"Choose the right, choose the right,
Let wisdom mark the way before.
In its light, choose the right
And God will bless you ever more."
And being the good little Mormon boy that I was supposed to be meant a lot of wrestling with the concept of right and wrong. Do I take the pop my mom's been saving in the fridge to slake a reader's thirst or drink tap water instead? Do I tell the recess monitor that Rich Bully is playing house with a second grader or let him piss in her hair some more? Do I forgive my sister for pouring new model paints over my mattress or offer some percussive discipline about her head and neck? If I ever "chose the right" it was by accident.
Being bad was and is the shit. I could do things that no sane parent would condone, take what I wanted from whomever I pleased and diddle the afternoons away despite a religiously applied proscription against touching oneself. The best thing was that I was taking my badness cues from the one place where no one suspected - the Bible. If Jacob's brothers could put him in a pit and sell him into slavery then I could tie my sister to a tree and rent her out for the afternoon. If the Prodigal Son could take and squander his inheritance on wine women and song I could snatch the change off my dad's dresser to buy a Jumbo Mr Freeze at the store. And Onan...wow...what do you say about a guy who has the best sin of all named after him - I'd tip my hat if I had a hand free or wore a hat.
It got to the point where I was around thirteen that my badness always had a turtle head poking out. Not only was I unstoppable but largely unsuspected as well - no one ever blames the quiet one. I collected a fair army of Battle Beasts (squat mostly immobile anthropomorphic action figures with interchangeable weapons used to play a wood, water, fire game much akin to paper, rock scissors..."Battle Beasts, they grow into an army, Battle beasts") with the five finger discount method and increased my comic book collection too. Cash could always be obtained from the Bank of Mom (her purse) for sundry needs and I never went without the little things that make every kid's life bearable (ships, pop and chocolate bars). My downfall was that I was too greedy.
INT - K-Mart - Pembroke, Ontario - DAY
A rotund 13 year old boy in dripping muk-luks and a grey plastic parka surveys the rack of audio cassettes. Five dollars pilfered from his mother's purse is burning a hole in his pocket and there are some cassettes on sale for $3.99. He spins the carousel display past such offerings as Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet" (got it) and the marked down Devil's Music (i.e. AC/DC and Iron Maiden) to stop when he sees the Holy Grail of Church approved listening, "The California Raisins Sing the Hits" for $11.99 A quick glance at the case shows him several choice songs being covered by the four wrinkled fruits. A quick glance around him shows no one looking and the tape slides easily down into the parka's lining through a strategically cut hole through the inside pocket (it's the first coat he's owned that has an inside pocket owing to the fact that a man's medium coat was necessary to cover his man sized gut).
His father waits at the front of the store since depositing the rest of the brood in the car. The father has an inherent hate of shopping that his son will inherit in later years and just wants the fuck out. It's snowing outside and he wants to make it home before the ploughs come out. They've almost made it out through the automatic doors but a strange voice stops them both:
"I need to see what's in your coat?" The speaker is a stocky man in work boots and Kubota tractor hat. He's accompanied by a tall cadaverous blond woman in a long mangy black fur coat who wears glasses studded with rhinestones. The father thinks that the man is talking to him and starts to protest but the woman clarifies.
"We were talking to the Boy."
"The Boy" tries to make himself as insignificant as possible which is a tough order considering that he is the biggest person there (around the middle at least). He slaps half-heartedly at his pockets and opens his coat hoping that their search won't be too thorough but the cadaver woman has eyes like his mother's. They spot the bulge in the lining down by the hem and she asks if the Boy would kindly remove the cassette. The Boy knows he's busted and it takes a minute to free the cassette from the sticky confines of the coat's lining.
"Did you buy that?" the father asks hopefully.
The Boy takes advantage of this unsuspecting ally and nods an emphatic yes.
"Do you have a receipt?" asks the corpse woman. The father turns his face down to his son's waiting for his first born to produce the scrap of paper.
The Boy hangs his head, "No."
"You'll have to come with us," the man says, all business. He leads the way down the stores main aisle followed by the Boy and his father in single file with the blond cadaver bringing up the rear. It's a Saturday afternoon and the store is crowded enough that the boy's shaming is noted by half a hundred people.
The tiny room that they are lead to smells of cigarette smoke the ammonia reek of old urine. He is sat down next to his father and questioned at length with the cassette tape sitting on the desk between him and the inquisitors. It feels like hours that they're sitting in that room. The Boy is told that since he's over twelve years of age that this incident will be attached to his Juvenile record. He will never be able to get a government job, come in to a K-Mart for one year (he will never return to a K-Mart again, ever) and probably become a bed wetter for stealing. The Boy sits silently, speaking only to answer a direct question while his father refuses to even look at him. Because there is something much more serious on the father's mind; more serious than being able to shop at K-Mart or work for the government. The thirteen year old boy has shamed his father by dishonouring his newly ordained priesthood. And the Boy will never be forgiven.
End Scene
Do I still do wrong? Meh...I suppose an outsider would say so but I stopped caring about other people's opinions after that trip to the smelly room in the back of K-Mart. Quitting the Church helped too and so did the discovery that ethyl alcohol plus a certain type of girl equals dirty bad fun. I haven't stolen anything since (and been caught) but that piss smelling room will always remind me that there dark places in this world waiting for people like me to take that one toke over the line into damnation. Whatever...I've since lived in worse smelling places than that back room and counted myself among the fortunate. I've made and spent a few fortunes of ill-gotten wealth with nothing more to show from them but an abused liver and a spank bank full of mammaries.
The important thing is that I have the presence of mind not to give a shit anymore.
