And that's how I got the idea.

See, I was in bed, dead asleep. And then I was awake. I saw by the clock that it was almost exactly noon. So I needed to be getting up anyway, but not like this. Like someone had knocked on my front door or something. Which somebody had. The dog had moved out of the room and was facing the front door, but he wasn't making any sense. The dumb thing has two modes. Generally it's the I'll-tear-through-this-door-and-rip-your-throat-out! one. Once in awhile it's the mad tail-thumping Oh my buddy is here to play! version. But instead he was standing, tail twitching a tiny bit, and just the slightest gravel deep in his throat. I was figuring maybe the wind had bumped the storm door open and shut. Or some asshole had left a circular on the doorknob and was already houses away.

It made sense to me to share the dog's lack of concern and stay flat awhile longer. But then there was another light rat-a-tat-tat on the storm door. The dog didn't shift his stance. I didn't know of anything that might be possibly be being delivered to me, and the delivery people always just knocked once and dropped off the package, unless for some special reason they needed a signature. I couldn't think of anything I'd need to sign for that wouldn't be an invitation to trouble.

Well, curiosity is the curse of the human race, so I got up, came out of my bedroom and was immediately in full view of the big plate glass door. I didn't have my glasses on, so all I saw was two guys in suits standing out on my porch. One of them was tall and thin, the other looking like a little butterball. No point in running if they already knew where I lived.

So I opened the door, and too late noticed their little sissy backpacks, and the stupid smiles on their freshly scrubbed faces. They were youngsters playing dress-up in their big-boy suits. The nametags identified them exactly. Jehovah's boys.

I looked them dead on. "I'm not interested in what you're selling."

"Oh, we're not selling anything, sir," the taller of the two piped up.

"Hello? You're trying to sell me your stupid fucking religion."

That caused their lips to wilt. The talker recovered, "Oh no, we just want to talk to you and share some of the things our Lord has to say . . . "

I cut him off, "Blah blah blah . . . And yeah, verily, thus the Lord sayeth unto me: tell those latter day fake saints to suck my dick!"

The silent buddy got a little smirk. "Looks like someone doesn't wake up until lunchtime. Maybe we should come back later."

"Yea," I agreed, "Like when you've lost about fifty pounds, you fat little fucker. I sleep until noon because I work third-shift. Work: that's where you have to go out and make money, because not everyone has a buttfucking church to pay their room and board. So get the hell out of here before I kick you the hell out of here!"

That got them motivating.

"Jesus loves you!" Chubby snarled over his shoulder as they reached the sidewalk.

"And he thinks you're a douche bag, ya bike-riding pansy!" I grabbed a porch chair and flung it at the fucker. It was too early in the day for my aim to be on--it barely grazed him. Still, they high-tailed it, and had to skip a couple houses to make sure they were safe. I had to remember to tell my neighbors down that way that they owed me one.

And that's how I got the idea.

I started some coffee, let the dog out, then picked up the phone and called Bernie, my coworker.

After about twenty rings, Bernie picked up. Though a very reliable worker, he was slow that way. Fucker'd never figured out how to make his answering machine work.

"Row?" He was still so asleep his mouth could barely make words.

"Bernie, it's Lloyd! Wake up, it's a beautiful day. It's a beautiful day full of beautiful ideas."

"The fuck, y'old prick, 'm sleepin'!"

I was surprised he even knew who he was talking to, given his muddled state. The name Lloyd hardly identified me to him: he always just called me you old prick. "Not anymore you aren't. Got something to talk to you about. A plan. I'm gonna slug down a couple cups of coffee, then I'll be over, about half an hour. Be dressed and ready to roll."

"Aww, how 'bout later?"

"Gotta make hay while the sun shines. Didn't your daddy teach you that? Bernie! wake up! We gotta get motivating--I've got this great plan to get us back on first-shift."

"Really?" He was all ears now, the way I knew he'd be. He was forever bitching about third-shift because it meant he couldn't go to the bars at night. "Come on, you old prick, tell me about it right now!"

"See you in thirty!" I hung up and went to let the dog in. Then I poured a cup of coffee and sat down with the newspaper and my thoughts. My phone was immediately ringing, but of course I let the machine pick up. That's what machines are for--to fuck with your friends. I had the speaker volume all the way down. After his second attempt, I turned the ringer off as well. If a tree falls in the forest but nobody's there and all that shit. If a phone rings but nobody can hear it, it's not really ringing, is it? Ahh, coffee, the drink of philosophers.

After about twenty minutes I went out and got in my battered work van and drove over to Bernie's. The thing was we worked the third-shift in the sense that three in the morning was the best time to, say, throw a cinderblock through the window of a small watch shop and grab all we could in five minute's time. Use a bat to break out the window of an independent computer store and boost a couple high-end models. Slam the back of the van through the window of a camera store and quickly fill up a pillow case. We'd even hit the kind of convenience stores that didn't stay open all night long, but it was always less a matter of Stop-N-Stop than Grab-N-Go.

I got to Bernie's and knocked on his door for what seemed like half an hour. He finally answered, holding a mug of coffee. He was barely dressed, but good enough for me. "Hey! What's up, you old prick? Sorry I'm not ready, but didn't think you were serious." His look was sleepy and sheepish.

"Ready enough for me," I said. I snatched the mug out of his hand, set it on the porch, then grabbed his hand and pulled him out to the van.

"Wh-wh-what? Wh-wh-where we going?" he wondered.

"Shopping!" I answered smartly. I drove us way out to the Value City in the crappy end of town. For about 150 bucks we each walked out with new cheapo suits, crisp button down shirts, ugly ties and shiny plastic-leather shoes. And a pair of those stupid sissy little backpacks. On the way back I pulled into the parking lot of the Kingdom Hall near our neighborhood. I had Bernie wait in the van. The front door of the place was unlocked so I walked right in. There was no one right around since the morons were still out knocking on doors. There was a crappy folding table right inside stacked with all the stupid literature. I grabbed a bunch of everything. As a bonus, there were some stray blank nametags lying around so I snagged a handful of them as well. I had one of those crappy plastic label makers at home.

I took Bernie home and then we sat at his kitchen table while I unfurled my plan. "We're moving into doing houses during the daytime now. You know how that goes, right? Guys knock on the front door; if no one answers and there's no dog, they bust in through the back door, right?"

"Yea, yea," he nodded eagerly.

"But the thing is, things get a little dicey with us going door-to-door in our work clothes, what with all these Neighborhood Watch associations and shit. Not to mention all those fucking old men and women with nothing to do all day but sit staring out their front windows waiting for the mailman to bring them their Shopper's Bargain coupon sheets and Social Security checks, right?"

"Yea."

"So . . . we suit up and go dressed as Jehovah's Witnesses. We scope a block, got the van parked in the alley, and everyday is payday."

Bernie's eyes lit up. "You old prick, you are fucking brilliant!"

I stood up to leave. "So be ready tomorrow morning around nine. I'll get our name tags ready tonight, load up the back packs, and then we'll be good to go."

"Sure thing, boss," he saluted.

I went home, had a nap, dinner, then a few beers. After a few more I got a little giggly and got out the label maker. I twisted the stupid plastic letter wheel around and around, clicking the lever, having decided I'd be named Elder Johnson, in homage to what Bernie always called me. As for Bernie, well, he was like a box of rocks on two feet, but in the field he was good as gold, so, laughing aloud, I decided to crown him Elder Ado. I knew he'd miss the reference, and bitch about the name, but since it sounded sort of Italian and since he looked sort of Italian, it was a poifect fit.

Before I went to bed I divvied up the literature between the two weeny backpacks, glancing through the crap as I did it. I just laughed my ass off at what I saw.

The booklets and illustrations were ridiculous. The grass is always green, the sky a perfect blue, it's constantly a nice warm sunny day, and you're walking down the street and you meet your friend Mr. Lion; you guys decide to stop over and visit the Smiths, and look who's already there! Why, it's the Widow Sheep and all her lambykin children. Since it's such a nice day you all decide to go to the park, play some volleyball, and have a picnic. I guess the sandwiches are crappy bean sprout concoctions--I don't know if those assholes are vegetarians, but it doesn't seem very fair to Mr. Pig and Miss Turkey to say, Hey, you guys are too tasty, you have keep on winding up in the deli case. Praise the Lord for making you guys so delicious.

That was the flaw in the plan. If we had to actually talk about this shit, our bluff was pretty bad. I'd just ad-lib some crap about Christ and about the lion not eating the goddamn lamb. All that sunny sky shit, and the grass always so green you could cancel your contract with the ChemLawn truck.

Of course most people didn't want to talk to us. They'd open the door, take one look at us, shake their heads and shut the door. Jesus says, Open thy door! Don't shut me out! Open the door to your heart. By our second day on the job we'd learned that if we saw an old lady tottering down the hall our best tact was to just smile, wave, and get the hell out there long before she could reach the door. Unless it was around lunchtime, when we'd go in and help ourselves to a plate of stale cookies washed down with prune juice. Politely ask, then take turns using her restroom, each of us nicking whatever little crap we could find going to and fro.

I put Bernie in charge of taking the pamphlets and tracts home with him after work--I didn't want that twisted shit in my house. The thing was, he was such a retard he took to actually reading the stuff. So after about a week our worries were over. If we got caught at a door, I'd be the greeter, then turn the show over to him. He could really talk the talk. The scary thing was how good he got. He'd get these lifelong Methodists and Baptists convinced that they'd gotten it wrong all these years. I kind of wondered what Kingdom Hall thought about all these old biddies hobbling in ready to sign up, and where are those two nice gentlemen, and by the way, had anyone seen their diamond rings and Percodans?

We were definitely learning on-the-job. It was smartest to wait to hit three empty houses in a row. We'd clear out the middle one with no problem. And then, in the older urban neighborhoods where the houses were close together, it was so easy to open the side windows of the central house, smash out the windows mirrored in the adjoining houses, pass the merchandise through into the first one, and wind up with the van totally full! It was what we called a triple-play. At the warehouse where we dumped the stuff, we went from being known among our peers as princes of the trade to jaw-dropping full-fledged kings!

Things were going so smooth. The money was fucking rolling on in. My first intimation that things were not quite right in paradise was the first time Bernie expressed the reservation that maybe what we were doing wasn't quite right. In, like, a moral sense. Well, duh. We were robbing people blind. Nothing about that was any different from what we'd been doing all along.

The next stage was the shift from when I went from being the guy who would sometimes join him at the bars to when he began dropping off, eventually explaining to me that alcohol was the elixir of the Devil. The breaking point was the morning I showed up at his place to pick him up for the day's work and he declined, explaining how Jesus said this and that and some other bullshit stuff. "I'm thinking of joining the church," he said in earnest.

Man, did I backpedal right on the spot. It was some of the quickest thinking I've ever done in my life. I nodded sagely, "I know what you mean, Bernie. The other night I had this total revelation. I've been totally thinking what you're thinking ever since."

I stepped forward, shook his hand, and then it turned into a long hug where we both wound up weeping. I was so happy! I left him, then went out and hit three triple-plays all by myself, and didn't have to share any of the money!

And that's how I got the idea.

Being at the bars by myself, I'd wound up talking to this young guy named Mikey. The kid was totally into being mentored, and very eager to make some money.

"The only problem," I mentioned, "is I have this old partner who needs to be retired." Mikey nodded along as I sketched things out. The kid was smart. In the end, I gave him a hundred bucks. "Go buy the crappy suit, and then I'll see you in the morning. I'll have your name tag ready."

Later that night, at home, I clicked him out as Elder Berry.

The next morning, Bernie opened his door to find me standing on his porch wearing the usual suit.

Bernie shook his head at the sight of me. "You old prick, I thought I made it clear that I was done with all that."

"Bernie," I said, touching his shoulder with compassion, "I agree. You were right." I could see in his eyes how his mind was whirling. "I've joined the church." I'd beaten him to it, and I watched as his pupils narrowed in resentment.

Mikey stepped up behind me. "This is Elder Berry," I announced. "He's so happy we've changed our ways. Go put on your suit," I urged Bernie.

"We're holding a retreat in the country to rejoice in our new members," Mikey spoke his lines perfectly, "and we'd be overjoyed if you'd join us."

"Bernie," I exclaimed, "we'll be getting our real nametags!"

He was off and back in a flash. All these months I'd never seen him change his clothes so fast.

The three of us piled into my van, the bunch of shovels clattering around in the back.

Since I was driving, I didn't concentrate much on all the bullshit Mikey kept talking to Bernie. The upshot was that for the retreat we'd be having like some sort of Hawaiian pig roast or something. You dig a huge pit, build a roaring fire in the bottom, toss in the pig, bury it in dirt, and after twenty-four hours the fucker's ready to eat so you dig it back up. As the new guys, we had to dig the goddamn pit. It was like some sort of initiation-into-Jesus sort of thing. I drove about an hour out of the city deep into a state forest, where the festivities were to be held.

Mikey helped me remove the first foot of the virgin soil in solid chunks, and then I blistered my fingers alone digging deeper. Then Bernie eagerly shoved me aside and got down to deepen the trench.

To get a Missing Persons report filed on you, you first have to be missed. Bernie had no family around, and I was his only friend. The church thing was nipped before any bud.

"When are the rest of the guys coming with the pig?" he asked Mikey from the bottom of the pit. I answered by bringing my shovel down on his head. Being late in the day, my aim was perfect. And that was what was so perfect about Bernie. He was perfect at work, but basically a few pints short of a gallon. I remember growing up with cartoons where the bad cat would try to dislodge the good bird from the tree by sawing off the limb while sitting on the wrong end of the limb. That last split-second of Whoops! There were endless variations involving different characters. Of course the premise wound up seeming so implausible by the time I was ten. Until twenty years later, with the advent of those various Stupidest Home Videos type of shows, and there's this endless parade of guys way the fuck up long ladders pruning trees in their yards with chainsaws, with the ladders resting against the wrong side of the limbs. Whoops! Bernie was exactly that kind of guy.