A Non-Religious Son Living Within Fundamentalist Religious Town

“Happy birthday, dear,” my Mom said, presenting me with a wrapped gift. It was a thin rectangular cube shape. Much too big to be a video game, though Mom would never allow me to have video games. I suppose it was a book. What a lame gift. I tried to smile and show her my appreciation for it as I took it from her. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts.

“Go ahead, unwrap it,” Mom said, smiling.

She smiled and looked like she was about to give me the cure to some disease I had or was telling me I could walk and see for the first time. I carefully unwrapped the neat packaging and uncovered the book. I wasn’t surprised at what book it was exactly. It was the Book of SLD (Saints of Latter-Day). By the time I was 12, I had started rejecting the church teachings and told my parents vehemently that I was not religious and so they spent every single birthday giving me a copy of the book. Now that I have come of age, and it was clear I was not their little boy anymore, I had held some hope out that Mom would give up trying to in her words “save my soul from eternal damnation.”

“Mom. I already have this book. In fact, I have multiple copies of it,” I explained to her, though she very well knew this fact. Even though I resented the gifts of the teachings of fundamentalist Normans, I made it a rule never to throw out gifts from my parents. They still had sentimental value to me, though they remained unread and sitting on my bookshelf.

“This is much different,” She exclaimed. “I got from an antique dealer. It’s expensive, one of the first printings of the book. It even has a certificate of authenticity with it.”

She sounded so excited, so I couldn’t help feel her joy as well. I looked down at the book again and skimmed it.

“Just look at that leather bound casing and flip through the pages. You can just feel the history come alive through it and reveal the rich tradition of our great religion.” Mom said.

“Your great religion,” I said, correcting her.

“Oh, honey…” Mom sighed. “You are young but trust me. You are one of us, but you don’t know it yet. You are in a rebellious phase, and God sees you tempted with the devil, but he will welcome you back with open arms once you find your way to us. I know you will.”

I learned not to argue with her on religion. It never leads anywhere. She would believe what she believes, and there’s no convincing her or me to change our beliefs.

“Thank you for the gift, mom,” I said.

Mom reached over and kissed me on the cheek. I went back to my room. My room was full of bags and things being packed up. I had large black plastic garbage opened up with junk and trash in it. I was preparing to move out and go to college in Boston by the end of summer. I would finally get out of this creepy flyover town. I lived in Middleton, stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but go to church and prayer groups. The town was full of religious fundamentalist Normons. It was such an odd spectacle seeing men in the open being followed by many women, all sister-wives. At church functions, the same thing. The head of the household sat next to multiple wives and their children in the aisles. The worst thing about this town is that everyone in town knew I was not a practicing Normon and would never stop trying to convert me to the faith.

I did have very misogynist dreams of one day being the head of one of those fundamentalist Normon households. It would be nice to have multiple wives and everyone feeling so casual about it. These feelings were brief and spurned out of hormones and not by faith.

I sat on my desk and opened the ancient Book of SLD and examined it. It had an antique look to it. Age cracked the leather and white discoloration streaked it with years of use. Inside, however, was the same tedious and boring text. I had memorized most of the book when I was young and still with the church. Something extraordinary I had noticed about the inside of the book. It was pristine; the pages were at least. Mom said this was an antique, she must have gotten ripped off. The paper pages look very new. On the outside, the book looked ancient, but inside the book look like it just came fresh off a press. I turned to the back and noticed a signature on the last page of it. It looked like the signature of Joseph Adams, the founder of the church. I flipped a few pages before the last pages, and there were empty pages. When I finally reached text again, there was a trail of ink that smeared from left to right. The ink looked new, and I wiped it out. I kept running my hand on the text and accidentally wiped out the word “Amen”.

I reached for a pen and wrote instead of the word “Amen” I wrote in “Epic”. I chuckled to myself. It was dumb juvenile humor, I know. I closed the book and left it on the table. Mom would have lunch prepared soon.

In the kitchen, my lovely older sister Mary, a brunette with a bob cut, was setting up the plates. She was wearing an extremely conservative 50s style dress that tucked away her modest bosom and hips. My mother, Sarah, was making sandwiches. Mom was wearing a polka-dot dress reminiscent of 50s housewives. Mom short blonde hair in curls. Also in the style of 50s Americana. To an outsider, the house and neighborhood and fashion would be odd. I grew up here, and it didn’t seem that strange to me until I visited other places and started watching television. The whole place felt like it was 40 years behind the time.

At lunch, we ate tuna sandwiches with regular potato chips. Mom placed the food in front of us. My sister, Mary, sat beside me and my mother sat in front of us. I was hungry and wanted to eat, but I had to patiently wait until Mary and Mom said grace. Mom closed her eyes, and I didn’t want to upset her, so I held her hands, and Mary held mine and our mother’s hand, and we formed a ring of hands.

“Lord, we sit here in prayer and guidance in your divine mercy, and we beg you to keep showing us the way to salvation. We pray for our dear departed father and husband, who we trust is with you now. We thank you for our daily bread. Epic.” Mom said.

I immediately burst into fits of laughter.

“John, that is quite rude to laugh after grace.” Mom said. “Where are your manners, dear?”

“Wait. Am I the only one who heard that?”

“Heard what?” Mom asked.

“You said Epic instead of Amen,” I said.

“Well, yes. We are Normons. We say Epic.”

I chuckled when she repeated the word. It sounded so amusing coming out of her mouth.

“Maybe John ought to go see a doctor,” my sister Mary said.

“Are you feeling alright, dear?” Mom asked.

“Wait… that wasn’t a joke?” I asked.

“What wasn’t?” Mom asked. Her face was still set like a stone, and Mary didn’t seem amused either. They both looked at me with concern.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I said.

We ate the meal, not discussing my outburst again. I would have to investigate this. After lunch, I told my mother I would head to my Grandmother’s house to eat dinner. After catching a movie and I headed to Grandmother Susan’s house to eat. Grandpa Joe and his sister-wives and my Grandmother all sat in their table holding hands and saying grace with me. I had to contain my laughter when Grandpa Joe finished his grace with “Epic.” Though my grandmother and her sister-wives all looked at me weird when I smirked. After leaving Grandmother Susan, I headed home to check on the book Mother had gifted me.

The book remained open on my desk where I left it. I skimmed through it to where I made the addition of “Epic.” I flipped through the pages again and noticed all the words of “Amen” were replaced with “Epic” and all in my handwriting. I wiped away the word “Epic” and replaced it with the word “Boobies.” I snickered again, the young dumb idiot I was. At once all the instances of the word “Epic” were replaced with “Boobies”. Odd.

I went towards an empty blank page at the back and added my own entry. I would decide to test this thing out. I thought to myself what I could do and wrote.

Note – This is sort of based off of fundamentalist Mormonism, but I don’t really know that much about it (besides watching Big Love), so I made a kind of parody off of it so I can just make stuff about the religion as I go along