Read Online B003UYURTC EBOK by John Corey Whaley - Free Book Online Page A

are a bright boy.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “You’re what, nineteen?”
    “Eighteen, sir. I graduated early,” Benton said proudly.
    “Ah, yes. I seem to remember that. Anyway, what I was saying was that you are such a bright young boy that I think we might need to reconsider your duties for this church.”
    “I’m sorry?” Benton asked.
    “I believe we have perhaps chosen you too quickly to be a missionary. What I thought was great potential to spread the word of God turned out to be, well …”
    “Reverend,” Benton interrupted, “I want to do this. I want to go out there and change people. It just wasn’t possible where you sent me. That’s not the way it worked.”
    “I know the way it works, Benton. I’ve been on nearly fifteen missions myself. I’ve been all over the world. I know how these things go.”
    “Then you know that Rameel’s ministry consists of more talk about rice and grain than about Jesus?” Benton was beginning to get flustered.
    “I know that Rameel was chosen by God to help all those people.”
    “But he’s not helping them. He’s just prolonging their lives. They are still damned when he leaves them. They are fed, but still damned!” Benton began to raise his voice.
    “Benton, you have somehow lost sight of your mission as a Christian. I’m sorry, but we will not be sending you anywhere else.”
    Benton Sage had, since he was a young boy, one ultimate goal in mind at all times: to make his father proud of him. He also learned as a young boy that doing this required a strict and sometimes exhausting devotion to religion. At eight, Benton had learned to impress his father by reading scripture at the dinner table. This, as it turns out, often saved him from the beatings received by his two sisters. At nine, he learned to remember scriptures by singing them in his head. At ten, he was asked to recite a scripture during an Easter Sunday church service. When he messed up on two words, his father glared at him from his seat. Benton thought of running away that afternoon, of never going home to be punished. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t leave his siblings and his mother behind to bear the brunt of “Reverend Rambo,” as he and his sisters jokingly called him.
    “Benton,” his father said that Easter night, sitting on the edge of his bed.
    “Yes?”
    “You disappointed your mother and me today, son,” he said in a somber voice.
    “I know, and I’m sorry. I really tried,” he defended himself.
    “Don’t make up excuses. It isn’t worth it. You said you knew the scripture and you didn’t. Tomorrow, when your sisters are out playing, you’ll be up here reading that scripture over and over until you know it.”
    “But I do know it. I just got nervous,” Benton began to whine.
    “You got nervous because you were ashamed of yourself. As well you should have been. I was ashamed of you and so was God,” he said as he walked out of the room, switching off the light.
    Benton Sage, bathed in complete darkness, whimpered and cried like an injured animal left for dead. He repeated the scripture aloud for no one to hear. He repeated it again. And again. He did this until sleep finally took him, and as soon as he woke up the next morning, he began to recite the scripture once more. He said it while brushing his teeth, his speech muffled by the toothbrush and toothpaste. He said it in the shower, water shooting into his mouth with every word. He spoke it to himself on the school bus, causing three different kids to move farther away from him for fear he had lost his mind.
    At sixteen, Benton asked a girl named Susie to the Home-coming dance at his school. That night, as he adjusted his tie in the bathroom mirror and made his way to the door, he was stopped by his father. He ordered Benton to sit down.
    “I have bad news,” his father said.
    “What? What happened? Is everyone all right?”
    “Yes. Everyone’s fine. It’s your date. It isn’t going to work out,”