Short Stories

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Missing the Postmark
by Patricia Backora, author of the book
Tough Love in Christ’s Millennium
Which you can order online from http://www.publishamerica.com

Janet stretched out in her easy chair and yawned. She would soon have to return to her job as an airline ticket agent after taking six months’ maternity leave. But she would make the most of this brief break. At least she knew that when she went back to work she’d be reinstated in her former position. At least she wasn’t some poor factory worker who might not be able to get her job back. Poor Ralph had to work one full-time and an extra part-time shift on the police force just to keep them all going, and it wasn’t easy maintaining the family without her contribution. But Janet would enjoy these precious moments of quiet in her buttery soft recliner. Her two older kids would be coming in from school in just an hour. Then the noise of their horseplay would fill the house, and the baby would wake up from her nap, howling for attention.

She flicked on her favorite televangelist, "Brother Harvey Greengold". The tall, tanned poodle-permed preacher belted out his usual greeting of "Praise the Lord! Your blessing’s about to blossom!" As he pointed his jeweled finger at the viewer, it seemed like his reassurance was for Janet alone. A bouncy musical intro and a glittery floral backdrop emphasized his byline: "God meets big needs when you sow big seeds.”

Janet wasn’t quite so sure anymore. Times were harder than ever. Even after the family income had plummeted she had regularly sent this guy a good chunk of her household allowance money, without first mentioning it to Ralph. He’d hardly noticed the missing funds, attributing their meager family meals to necessary belt-tightening during Janet’s unpaid maternity leave. Ralph didn’t resent it, though. A new baby was lots of work and it had taken Janet a long time to regain her health after the birth.

"Sometimes God tests our faith," said Brother Greengold. "If you’ve sent this ministry a sacrificial offering and you haven’t gotten back your hundred-fold return yet, just hang on. In school, my nickname was "Hang-on Harvey". No matter how hopeless the basketball score got, I’d never give up. I’d just keep on playing the game till I sank the winning ball into the hoop. And because I refused to be defeated, God has richly rewarded me for it. The devil wants you to be discouraged and to give up. But instead of confessing defeat, send in a one-time "Defy the Devil Donation" to show you’re standing up to satan and won’t give in to his temptation to be a quitter. The more money you sow to keep this ministry on the air, the madder satan will get. And keep this in mind, saints. Without your help, we wouldn’t be able to feed the hungry around the world. We’re dependent on YOU!"

Janet sighed. She felt a little uneasy. But maybe it was because she’d kept Ralph in the dark about her donations. She took a ten-dollar bill saved from her grocery money and folded it into a letter pleading for Dr. Greengold’s prayers for deliverance from poverty. Just this one last time....

Hank and Jeff, her tall, skinny teenagers came in, barely saying "hi" to her before stampeding to the kitchen. The baby started yelling. Janet heard the fridge door open, then boisterous shouts: "Gimme that milk! You’re hogging it all! Hey, it’s mine, you pig!"

Janet had barely entered the kitchen when a splash of milk hit her in the face. "Hey, stop acting like animals, you two! It’s all we’ve got, so share it! Look, there’s 70 cents on the table, so go get another quart and stop arguing."

"Just a quart!" Hank, the 16-year-old, griped. That wouldn’t even wet my tongue!"

"Well, that’s all the money I’ve got left," Janet said, wondering if she was lying. "Unless you two can pitch in."

Jeff, the 14-year-old, dug into his pocket. "All I’ve got is six cents."

"All I’ve got is eleven cents," Hank said. "Guess we’d better mow a few yards so we don’t starve to death, huh!"

"Well, we could just mix flour and water and pretend it’s milk," Jeff suggested.

"If we’re not out of flour too," Hank added with a note of sarcasm.

"Very funny," Janet frowned. "Why don’t you just pray God will provide milk for us?"

"Showers of milk, showers of milk we need. Milk drops around us are falling, but for the pizza we plead!" Hank sang with dramatic flair, mimicking an old hymn.

"Stop it!" Janet scolded, recalling a tragic lesson from II Kings Chapter 7. "Somebody in the Bible got into big trouble with God for saying he didn’t expect God’s blessings to just drop out of the sky like rain! God’s teaching me to have faith even when things look bad! If it wasn’t for Pray TV helping me believe in God’s promises I’d be up the creek without a paddle!"

"Those guys don’t look too poor to me," Jeff shrugged. "There’s always milk in their fridge. And I bet it’s chocolate, too."

"And they’ve got a swimming pool in their back yard," Hank chimed in.

"Well, God rewards those who faithfully preach the Gospel," Janet said.

"I’ll say he does," Jeff said scornfully. "I oughta get into the religion racket so I don’t have to have to suck out chicken guts at the Henny Penny plant after I get sprung out of high school."

"That was uncalled-for and you know it!" Janet looked mad. "Your Aunt Marsha works there!" Why did teenagers have to be so sassy anyway?

"If you guys want to make yourselves useful, drop this in the mail when you go get the milk," Janet said. "Baby Brenda is yelling her head off, so I’d better go feed her. Be sure to get this off right away, so I can get God to bless us. I want today’s postmark to be on it, and the last mail is collected at five." She handed the boys her letter to Brother Greengold.

The boys grinned. "God sure is particular about when the mail truck collects His fan mail and takes it to preacherland, California," Hank said.

"Never mind your sass, just mail it for me, okay?"

Once the baby was fed and bathed, Janet put her in her play pen and went to fix supper. Why, a good cook like her could work wonders with leftover pinto beans, a couple cans of tomatoes, rice and chili powder. There was even a chunk of cheese in back of the fridge. She cut off the moldy part and hummed as she assembled her special dish. Tomorrow would be another day. Maybe then God would multiply back all the money she’d sent in to that preacher. And today’s donation would go out in today’s mail, the deadline Brother Greengold told his flock to aim for. It just wouldn’t do to "miss the season of anointing" by waiting for a more convenient time to give. Today’s postmark on Janet’s letter would be her point of contact in believing for her miracle! October 20 was, according to Brother Greengold, the Lord’s chosen Date for Destiny!

An hour later the boys still hadn’t arrived home, but Ralph came in for two hours to rest and eat before going back in to work the night shift. He gave Janet and the baby a kiss and said, "We’re collecting odds and ends for the police rummage sale. I need a couple bags to stuff some of my old junk in." He fumbled beneath the sink and got out several plastic shopping bags. He spotted a grocery receipt in the bottom of one bag. Curious, his fished it out and looked it over.

"October 19, that was yesterday, wasn’t it?" he asked Janet.

"Yeah, honey, what about it?"

"The total amount due was $19.30. We already gave the boys their bus and lunch money for the week, so you should have ten left from your shopping budget. Where is it? I might need it tomorrow."

Her words came with difficulty. "You’ll get it back, Ralph. Every penny. I promise."

"Where IS it?" he asked, feeling very uneasy.

"The Lord told me to send it to somebody who needs it even worse than we do."

"And who could need it even more than us?" Ralph’s voice rose.

"Brother Greengold, that preacher on TV. He runs charities to feed the poor around the world."

"Ha!" Ralph snorted. "I’ve heard a few things about him. How could you fall for his con game?"

"What con game, Ralph? He shows pictures of hungry kids. It breaks my heart to see them."

"The pictures may be real, but that doesn’t mean Brother Greengold’s an honest guy."

"But what if he is, Ralph? Why run the risk of not helping those innocent children? What’s fifty cents, or a dollar, every now or then? At least we don’t have to do without the necessities of life."

Ralph’s voice cracked with anger and frustration. Hot resentment flared up in his heart. "Oh, I’ve done without a lot since my mom had that illness she was uninsured for, and when she fell between the cracks of our system it was up to me to pay her hospital bill. But what can you do when it’s your own mother but make sacrifrices to help!"

"Well, we had to help, Ralph," Janet said weakly. "She’s your mother, right?"

"Yeah, I’ve had to do without a lot, Janet. I do without my coffee and my favorite cookies. It’s been ages since I saw a single piece of fruit in this house. No meat to speak of. Every morning day in and day out I get slopped with mortar mix oatmeal for breakfast. Once a week we get hot dogs and macaroni if we’re really splurging. I buy all my civvie clothes at thrift shops...when I can afford to. In heaven’s name, who could possibly need that money more than us!" His face was red as a beet.

"Brother Greengold does run foreign missions, I’m sure," Janet whispered, blinking back tears.

"What foreign missions!" Ralph cried. "The only foreign missions he collects for is foreign missions to Hawaii and his Lands of the Bible cruises, first class, of course!"

"Why, Ralph, that’s a terrible thing to say about the servant of the Lord!"

"The only "lord" he serves is himself!" Ralph retorted. "Busy slave though I am, I had my suspicions all along about what you’ve been up to, because I spotted a few of his mail-outs laying around the house and caught you watching him one day when I was off. I didn’t want to be the bad guy and force you to stop giving to what you thought was the Lord’s work. But God helped me see through this spider’s web of religious panhandling going on. So I kept quiet about it and started checking this guy out on the Internet and doing a little free lance detective work. If I had any suspicions about this guy they were confirmed by an article posted by one of his former associates. Anyhow, this guy’s conscience ate at him so bad he asked God’s forgiveness for being associated with Brother Greengold, and he was one of his right-hand men too."

"Well, Ralph, Brother Greengold did say something about how the devil was coming against his ministry..."

"The tax men no doubt," Ralph snorted. "I did more digging on this guy. I just never told you till now. He’s being investigated for fraudulent use of donor funds. And I just found out about his little nest egg in Switzerland. Tax-free, of course."

"Wanna know more about how Brother Greengold lives, Janet? Want me to pull back the carpet and expose the cockroaches hiding underneath it?"

Janet nodded, feeling angrier at herself than with the TV preacher.

"Now, here’s just a few of the perks of his so-called ministry! A multi-million dollar mansion with nine bathrooms, a tennis court, a horse farm, top designer clothes, Chardonnay wines, private jets, platinum gold diamond jewelry, a collection of Rolexes, fancy paintings, yachts, fancy cars, gold bathroom swans, trips to the Holy Land! When’s the last time you or I had even one lousy weekend together where we could even go to Ruby Falls for a lousy fishing trip! While Brother Greengold has a fleet of Mercedes and Porsches, the only decent car I drive belongs to the force and I have to rob Peter to pay Paul the payments on my own second-hand car. Hank just told me his track shoes are falling apart and the other guys are razzing him about it. We little guys and gals work like slaves so hucksters like Brother Greengold don’t have to! I bet he thanks God every day for those poor starving kids he shows off on TV! Oh, he might cry crocodile tears over them to keep the money rolling in, but when his tear-jerking show is over he laughs all the way to the bank! While he feasts like a king we eat garbage food to keep guys like him in style. His cats eat better than we do," Ralph grumbled.

"Garbage food?" Janet choked. "Why, we’re having something special tonight...Festive Beans and Rice. My own recipe."

"We ate beans last night, and the night before that potato soup," Ralph groaned. "Beans are beans and I’m turning into one big rootin’-tootin’ bean, I’ve had so many! What does Brother Greengold eat? Five-star cuisine at Figaro’s! Asparagus tips braised in lemon herb butter with savory wild rice! Noisettes of veal in wild truffle sauce! Candied pheasant and crepes flambe with raspberry coulis!" That was the menu served at his special "Inner Circle Banquet" to honor his top ten donors! I’d say I did my homework thoroughly!"

"How could Brother Greengold deceive us like that!" Janet blubbered. "He never told us about that banquet! He said he does without to help his hungry babies and he fasts a lot!"

"Yeah, maybe for ten minutes at a stretch as he rides his stretch limo to Figaro’s to wine and dine his cronies to celebrate their latest windfall!"

Just then two sheepish-looking boys entered the kitchen carrying grocery bags. While Jeff set 3 frozen economy pizzas, a gallon of milk, and some cheap cookies on the table, Hank confessed for them both: "Mom, Dad, we know you’re probably gonna kill us, but we just committed highway robbery."

"You didn’t..." Janet gasped, eyes widening in shock. "Just tell me you didn’t open my private mail and steal the money out of it."

"Yeah," Jeff shrugged. "Didn’t have no choice."

"Here’s the fifty-seven cents change left over, Mom." Hank plopped it on the table and swallowed hard.

"Don’t you know it’s a Class A felony, boys, tampering with other people’s mail?" Ralph said sternly, even as he looked longingly at the groceries. "I oughta slap cuffs on both of you and haul you in!"

"But Dad, we were starving. Please don’t run us in. We’re awful sorry."

Ralph looked at Janet, then asked her: "How long have you been mailing our food money to that guy behind my back?"

"Ah...six months or so, dear. I…I’m sorry. I kept on sowing seed for a miracle that never came." Janet felt very ashamed.

"No wonder Hank and Jeff got desperate enough to commit a federal offense," Ralph sighed. "Now I’m not excusing what they did, but if you had spent ALL the grocery money I gave you on food, they never would have fallen into such temptation."

"I know, dear," she said weakly. "I was fed a lie on TV, and I fell for it."

Ralph frowned at the two teenagers, though his mouth watered from the prospect of a decent meal. "Ordinarily I’d ground you two guys for what you just did till the Rapture comes, but I’ll go easy on you just this once because you got so hungry you weren’t thinking straight. And you did confess right away. Just don’t tell anybody else about this…except maybe Jesus."

Fearfully the boys nodded and swore they’d never do it again.

Ralph looked back at Janet. "You and the boys aren’t the only ones to blame. You embezzled cash from the food fund to send to a fool, and the boys stole that money, but that TV preacher robbed our family of money that should have gone into adequately feeding us. Now here’s a verse the pastor uses against us all the time: ‘Will a man rob God?’ But don’t preachers commit grand larceny against God every time they take food out of the mouths of God’s people so they can have gold-plated shower stalls and private jets?"

"I should say so, dear," Janet meekly lowered her head.

"The Bible also says it’s not okay to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs," Ralph said. "That’s Class A Child Abuse."

"Ralph," Janet gasped, "you’ve convinced me Brother Greengold is a hustler. But don’t you think it’s a sin to call him a dog?"

"I should say not, Janet. Somewhere in Isaiah it talks about ‘greedy dogs that can never have enough, and shepherds which lack understanding’. That fits Brother Greengold to a tee."

"So it’s okay we took the money to eat, then, Dad?" Hank wondered.

"No, not that way, son. It would have been best to come to me once you suspected that your mother might be sending our food money away. That was an invasion of your mother’s privacy, though you acted out of sheer desperation. Both you boys are grounded for two weeks and I expect you to pay your mom back out of your lawn-mowing money. Okay?"

"Fair enough, Dad," Hank said.

Ralph turned to Janet. "From the start of our marriage I made it plain that in good times and bad, we’ve got to be honest with each other. I know your motive was to try to get God to bless us, but you were led astray by a con artist and we all had to suffer for it. Just like satan deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden the preacher deceived you and played on your emotions to get you to open your heart, and your wallet, wide. But this time I’ll let you off with a warning." He mimicked a stern, coplike expression.

She gave him a quick kiss. "I’m so sorry, dear. I’m really surprised you found out all that bad stuff about Brother Greengold. Besides the fact I sent him money I saved by putting my family on short rations, maybe the reason God hasn’t blessed my donations to him is this: Because God’s blessing doesn’t really rest on him and if God had made us rich from sending him money, God would have been aiding and abetting a con man."

"Amen to that," her husband grinned. "So it hasn’t been a total loss. It might have been an expensive lesson, but we’ve all learned something from this case." He cleared his throat. "I think it would be best, Janet, if for the time being, we did the grocery shopping together as a family, eh?"

She looked wounded. "You don’t trust me anymore, Ralph, but how can I blame you?"

"I didn’t say I don’t trust you, dear, but this ‘pay the preacher’ prosperity game can get to be an addiction. Everybody’s got their own temptations to struggle against…me, you, the boys. That only shows how human we all are. And I’m not fool enough to think there aren’t other carnival acts on Pray TV hustling for easy dollars with a sob song. They preach a slot machine religion which obligates God to give you the moon if only you put enough quarters in the slot. But in that game, only the devil wins. I’m not trying to put you down, just help you to resist temptation. Besides, helping to do the shopping would give Hank and Jeff an education in getting the most for their dollar. You’d really be doing them a favor, Janet."

"Well…okay, dear. It’s the least I can do to show I’m on the right track now."

"Good. Oh, by the way, boys, what did you do with your mother’s letter to Brother Greengold after you fished his funds out of the envelope?"

"We resealed it with chewing gum and sent it to him but first we wrote him an IOU...payable in the year 2500. Sorry about that too, Mom," Jeff said. "We were way too hungry to behave like good citizens."

Even Janet had to laugh at that one. "In the year 2500? I doubt Brother Greengold will still be fishing for funds during the Millennium!"

"Honey," Ralph sighed, “if I had my way you wouldn’t have to go back to work unless and until you really felt like it.”

Janet swallowed hard. “I’ve got no choice, Ralph. Short of a miracle.”

Just then the phone rang. Ralph went to answer it. When he came back some fifteen minutes later, his face was alight with joy. "Guess what, guys? Captain Gunnar just called to say I’m the one they picked out of eight candidates to replace Sgt. Phillips on the force when he retires next month. Did you hear that, everybody? I’m the new police sergeant of this entire town!"

Cheers all around. "Know what, Janet?" Ralph said. "With my increase in salary maybe you can stay home awhile longer, at least till Brenda’s bigger. What do you say to that?"

"Well, I don’t know…what with the cost of living, wouldn’t things still be a bit tight around here?"

"I’d already been wondering how to work that out, Janet. We could move all that junk out of the basement and convert it into a spare bedroom to rent out to some student. That would take a lot of pressure off us, too."

"Maybe Mom could even afford to make cookies for us again!" Jeff’s eyes shone.

"And I could get those new running shoes I need!" Hank said excitedly.

"But first let’s pop those pizzas into the oven," Ralph grinned. "Afterward we all go out for ice cream. Time to celebrate and praise the Lord for the light at the end of the tunnel."

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