James Rawles: Liberators

“I sit corrected.” Joshua was rather self-conscious now. He hoped that his subtle use of sarcasm resonated with her in some way, and he looked to change the subject. “By the way, Agape Community Church.”

“That’s where you attend church? Where is that?” Megan asked.

“Not far down 32 in Columbia, or the People’s Republic of Howard County, I should say. It’s the large brick building on the hill on the right that reads GATHERING PLACE on the outside.”

“Oh my, that’s a Christian church? I got the vibe that it was religious in some way, but I thought that it was a Unitarian place of worship or something since there is no cross on the building. I would have never thought that it was Catholic, though.”

Joshua laughed. “Yeah, we get all kinds of questions about that. It’s one of the gotchas of living in Merry-land, where the do-gooders use the pen more mightily than the sword. I’m not Catholic, but I was raised in a Catholic orphanage in Nashville, Tennessee. The lack of a cross actually goes back to the days when a man named Rouse founded the municipality of Columbia and passed an ordinance that no one faith group could have a single-purpose building for worship.”

“Okay, you’ve officially piqued my interest. I want to hear more about the orphanage, but first, define ‘single-purpose.’ If I own a bowling alley in Columbia, isn’t that single-purpose?”

“Wow, you do have the gift of wit,” Joshua retorted.

“Malorie, my younger sister, tells me that it’s my spiritual gift.”

Not exactly sure how to proceed, Joshua continued, “Yeah, but bowling alleys do not make spiritual, nonphysical claims, so they are of little trouble to those looking to build the utopian state. Actually, public schools are more like temples of social thought than any modern church.”

“Interesting choice of words. I must say that I agree with your sentiment on public schools. Seems like the liberals own the whole system, which is why we homeschool our kids.”

“Whoooah, perhaps I shouldn’t be having lunch with you alone.” Joshua sensed that he was inadvertently crossing a line at that very moment. “Are you married?”

“No, I’m actually divorced, but thank you for asking. Had you reacted otherwise in some opportunistic way, I would have thought much less of you. My sister, Malorie, and I were both homeschooled, and she lives with me now and helps take care of my children—hence my reference to ‘our’ children.”

“Homeschooling, that’s cool. I’ve never really given it much thought. I mean, after all, we pay taxes to the system, so we should probably use it. Do they learn Latin, too?”

“Of course, how else will they be able to read the classics?” Megan said.

Joshua adjusted his body armor so that it would not choke him as he ate his soup and said, “Hmmm, the classics—too many memories of ruler-toting nuns, perhaps more on that later. Anyway, Agape Community Church was planted as a Great Commission Church and the building is shared jointly with a Messianic Jewish congregation. The building is also rented out for private parties, weddings, that sort of thing. I actually play bass in the worship band at Agape in a rotation and this is our week to play. Service starts at ten-thirty on Sunday mornings.” Joshua realized he was leaning forward in a very interested way, but thought it was best to check his body language lest she think he was too pushy. He sat back for a moment before continuing. “Would you care to come? Since the building is not single-purpose we have to tear down all the sound equipment after service, so if you wanted to join us for lunch we usually shoot for around 1:00 P.M.”

“It sounds lovely, but I don’t make this commute on the weekends. It sucks the life out of me during the week, so to avoid it two days a week provides my sanity standard. Besides, it gives me a chance to catch up on the chores around the homestead and to play with the boys. Thank you just the same, for the invite.”

“Homeschooling and homesteading? Maybe I shouldn’t be having lunch with you after all, Ms. Megan, the glass-jar-smuggling homebrewer.”

“Yeah, check the NSA-Daily tomorrow. Maybe Big Sis Janet Incompetano will have something about us right-winger homeschoolers up there. You can never be too sure about people who eschew debt and have their kids memorize the Declaration of Independence. Sounds like the exact type of citizen I would want to turn my Gestapo on.”

Joshua was picking up on the fact that sarcasm was gold with Megan and that she could dish it out as well as take it. He decided that he definitely wanted to get to know more about her. Megan was different from a lot of the twenty- or thirty-somethings eligible bachelorettes at NSA. She was confident, dressed very modestly, and witty. “So where do you work?”

“OPSEC, Officer Kim. You are not read onto that compartment of Megan yet.” Megan, a single mom, had perfected her poker face without having an alpha male around and raising two boys. She wanted to see if Joshua was only after one thing, and to find out if she pushed, whether he would push back or simply lose interest. Megan had had to sit and listen to a lot of other single moms at the Agency cry on her shoulder because they had fallen for men who valued the chase but not the catch.

Sensing that this was a test, he decided to lay a marker on the table and show that he was still interested. “Referring to ourselves in the third person, are we?” He tilted his head twice over his left shoulder to point in a specific direction, “You know, there are Occupational Health shrinks right over in the next building; I can see about getting you an appointment.”

Megan burst out laughing while trying to cover her mouth and not spray any homemade sprouts. She wasn’t used to someone absorbing her darts so well, but regained her composure and confided, “I’m a threat analyst for SADCOM.”

“SADCOM?” Joshua furrowed his brow. “You mean “SOUTHCOM, as in Southern Command?”

“No, ‘SADCOM’ is what the people who work for CENTCOM call their parent organization. While they look romantically at their counterparts in SOCOM and refer to that as ‘HAPPYCOM.’”

“I see, maybe. No, wait, I don’t get it.”

“Just about everyone who works for CENTCOM doesn’t like it, myself included. I’m employed by contract for the Agency, but I work in an office that has a liaison officer (LNO) capacity to CENTCOM on behalf of the National Security Agency. I basically analyze the area of operations and assess our ability to gather intelligence in foreign areas that are nonconsensual to our exploits.” Megan paused for effect, carefully trying to get a read on Joshua, and then continued, “I basically push paperwork from one side of the desk to the other.”

Joshua saw that she was, in fact, a real person with real hurts, so he trod carefully, seeing if he wanted to dig deeper or not. Not knowing fully what to say, he keyed in on an earlier part of the conversation and said, “Sounds like that is rather unfulfilling for having to give up so much time during the week to work and not be home with the kids. Did you say that you had boys?”

“Yes, two sons. They are everything to me, and the reason why I get up in the morning to do this at all is for them.” Megan kept it on a professional level and said, “I was a signals analyst in Company B of the Marine Cryptologic Support Battalion here at NSA-W. Before that I was stationed at the RSOC in Kunea with Company I, with my ex-husband, Eric—you don’t have to ask, yes, he is an ‘ex,’ not a ‘former’ husband. You might say that he earned his Big Chicken Dinner with me.” Megan caught herself in an uncharacteristically unguarded moment and couldn’t conceal her flash of anger. She felt that she had said too much, and decided not to reveal anything else.