The Protest

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.  I. Corinthians 7:4

A week later, when Janey entered the duplex she used to share with Jake, she breathed a quick prayer, thanking God that Jake was at church.

She took a framed greeting card that Louise had given her off the wall. Earth below, dark star-studded sky above, the woman, head back, held the crescent of the moon in her hands, and drank the milky way spilling out of it. The Earth Mother taking the galaxy in her hands had helped Janey through a particularly bad time with Jake. It went into the paper bag she had brought.

While she considered being ousted from The Fellowship bother­some, one aspect she relished: the forbidding of a shunned spouse from engaging in sexual relations. The strange edict had infuriated Jake, but for Janey, it more than made up for the rest.

In the bedroom, she flipped the light switch. It felt eerie to be back where she had suffered so much at the hands of a man who was supposed to love her.

She threw clothes into the grocery sack: underwear, sweaters, socks.

Strange, she thought,It’s like some big, cosmic joke. All my life I was scared to death, thought I’d be damned without The Fellowship, but the only thing I feel is relief.

Being cast out gave her a clarity of vision that was completely foreign—foreign, because hers was a religion based on violent emotions, one in which blind faith was its native son, and logic a heretic.

Amazed at how strong she felt, she had quickly gotten over the shock of being ostracized. Just one week ago, she and Louise had gone into the Rathcreek drugstore. The man at the cash register stared at the items she had placed on the counter. She handed him a five dollar bill.

Arms crossed, he stepped back. “I’m not touchin’ that.”

“What?”

“Any money from your hand is unclean. I’m not touchin’ it.”

Janey withdrew the bill, unsure what to think. “I need those things. Where am I supposed to go?”

He stared at her.

Louise, who was approaching, would be no help. She had been shunned years ago.

At the counter, Louise took in the situation, held up her hands. Putting Milk Duds and a New Woman magazine onto the counter, she fished in her purse, wadded some bills and threw them at the man.

“Oooooh-wee! Don’t take money from this filthy heathen hand, or you’ll burn.”

“Now, dang it, Louise ...”

“Burn, baby, burn!” Louise shouted. Several customers looked their way. In her finest slow pitch, she hurled Milk Duds at him. The magazine fluttered over his head. “I’d like these bagged, Carl. If you don’t mind.” She pointed. “Money’s still on the floor. Better to stoop low, than take it from the hand of a sinner like moi. Or my sister.”

The scowling man scooped up the candy, magazine, wadded bills, rang the sale and bagged it. Janey watched, fascinated. The money of a shunned person was all right; but he couldn’t take it directly from her hand.

As Janey thought back to those scary first days of ostracism and Louise showing her the ropes, shunning seemed a silly, empty punishment that made her want to laugh rather than be taken back into the fold.

She went to the closet, took down an armload of dresses and tossed them on the bed, then staggered back. “Jake!”

Jake perched on an elbow, stared at her through sleepy eyes. “Hello, sweetheart.” He rubbed them, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Goin’ somewhere?”