Epimone

Epimone (e-pi’-mo-nee): Persistent repetition of the same plea in much the same words.

“Give me the apple! Hand over the apple! Give me the goddamn fu*king apple. Adam was going crazy for the shiny red apple that Eve was sensually rubbing up and down her slender firmly-shaped leg. she was what is called a “vixen” taunting Adam with her suggestive behavior. They were naked . . .”

My Sunday School teacher—Mr. Grauler—told it like it was—no watered-down version of the Garden of Eden. He swore. He painted an accurate portrait of the events that led Adam and Eve to get dressed and quit fooling around naked. We were only kids but we got it, much to the delight of Rev. Jones our pastor.

He had a scary gleam in his eye. The elderly church members lined up once a month to give him their Social Security checks after the Sunday service. We had hardly anything, yet Ma handed over her check. She was 70:and had a job cleaning and polishing bed pans at the county hospital. I asked her once why she gave her Social Security check to Rev. Jones. She told me that every check she gives him brings her one mile closer to heaven—12 miles per year. I did the math. Figuring she would die when she was eighty, and she was seventy now. So, she was going to die in 10 years, and she would earn 12 miles toward Heaven per year, she would be 120 miles closer to heaven.

After doing all the figuring, I realized I didn’t know how far away Heaven is. I looked in the Bible. I determined Heaven is “up” but I couldn’t find out how far up. People “ascended” to Heaven, but the Bible didn’t say how far they had to go. It didn’t seem that Ma’s 120 miles would get her to Heaven. At that point, I figured Rev. Jones was ripping her off.

I asked Rev. Jones his he was a fraud. His two minders, who always travelled with him, both reached into their suit coats. Rev. Jones said to me in a kind voivce “Adding miles is a metaphor for showing your commitment to the Lord.” I didn’t know what a metaphor was, so I asked Rev. Jones. He told me it was a non-literal construction of speech—a substitution of the usual word, that makes the speech more vivid and meaningful. In the case of “miles” they are being substituted for “commitment.”

I think I got it. But I think that that Ma and a lot of others took “miles” literally enough so it formed an incentive to fork over their Social Security checks each month.

One Sunday I went to Sunday School and nobody was there. The chairs were folded up and leaning against the wall. The stick-on cellophane “stained glass” had been removed from the windows. The candles were gone too.

We learned that Rev. Jones had fled to Belize after he had been accused of defrauding 100s of people with his “Miles to Heaven” scam. My mother was heartbroken. I vowed to hunt Rev. Jones down and bring him to justice.

I found him living in a luxury condo in Belize City. I confronted him with a baseball bat. He held up his hands and asked me if I wanted a job.

Now, I skipper a trawler off of Belize. We all know, Jesus was a fisher of men. I’m a fisher of Wahoo, MahiMahi, Tuna, etc. I have forgiven Rev. Jim his But, trespasses—to err is human. To forgive is divine. on the other hand, I’m waiting for an opportunity to drown him when he comes out fishing with me. I think that makes me a hypocrite.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

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