Unassigned Territory Read Free Page B

his congregation. Six not counting the morning’s big surprise, Visiting Elder Harlan Low.
    The Friends prided themselves on the fact that within their ranks there was no clergy/laity distinction. All were ministers. The headquarters in New York did, however, support a number of fulltime traveling representatives. The men were referred to simply as visiting elders, or, occasionally, as circuit riders, this latter phrase coming from the early days of the organization when some still did their traveling on horseback. By the 1960s most did their traveling in heavyweight American automobiles with aluminum house trailers connected to the rear bumpers. Still, the old title did have a certain flair and it was what Obadiah had in mind as he contemplated Elder Low. They had not yet been introduced and at the moment the man was standing with his back to Obadiah, his shoulders straining the seams of what appeared to be a gold metal-flake sharkskin sport coat. The material flashed as Harlan’s shoulders rolled beneath it, reflected sunlight ricocheting about the lot in a hideous fashion. Obadiah, blinded, turned away. At his side Neil Davis’s voice had assumed a low, machine-like hum—something about gas mileage and coolants, things Obadiah knew nothing of. He massaged the back of his neck and looked at the rest of the small group.
    Three of the sisters, Panama Allen, a black middle-aged housewife; Shirley Washington, of whom one might say the same; and Ruth Bishop, the mother of Ben Bishop, Pomona Central’s other Special Service boy, had arranged themselves in a half circle around Elder Low. It appeared to Obadiah as if the Elder were dispensing wisdom, for the three sisters had assumed almost identical expressions of rapt attention.
    Beyond the sisters, on the far side of a two-tone Plymouth station wagon, the son of Ruth Bishop, Obadiah’s partner in crime, stood examining the nails of his left hand. He was a tall, pearshaped youth, balding at twenty-three. The hand which he examined was held at arm’s length, fingers extended. Boys, Obadiah had been told, look at their nails with the fingers curled, palm toward the face. Girls turn the palm down and extend the fingers. Girls and faggots. Obadiah experienced an instant of contempt coupled with wild elation. It was only necessary to direct the attention of an appropriate person in the direction of the Plymouth... The instant evaporated in the heat, however, and Ben Bishop, his cover intact, took to squinting toward a brown horizon while Obadiah rested his eyes upon the fourth sister, and the morning’s other surprise, Bianca Allen.
    Bianca was Panama’s sixteen-year-old daughter. She rarely made meetings and Obadiah had not expected to see her on the trip. He could, however, see her quite well at the moment. She was a solidly built girl of medium height—solid in a muscular, athletic sort of way. She was sitting in the backseat of Ben’s station wagon, the door open, one leg in, one out, a summer dress hiked back just far enough to show, should Obadiah care to look, the white slash of panties between ebony thighs. Her extended leg caught the morning sun and shone like polished stone. Obadiah was not unmoved by the sight and soon found himself thinking of cream-colored Mary, watching as her smiling face bent toward his own from a concrete sky. He swayed slightly in the heat, blinked to clear his vision, and watched Bianca pop her gum. Bianca, at any rate, was a surprise he could live with. Harlan Low was another matter.
    Low was not just any traveling representative. He was, within the organization, something of a celebrity, having served recently as a missionary in Liberia, a country in which The Friends had, of late, come under extreme persecution. Harlan’s own mission had ended badly when a meeting at which he was presiding was broken up by soldiers, those in attendance arrested. The brothers and sisters, Harlan included, had then been taken to a makeshift compound and