Genesis of a Cult

This snippet of backstory does not appear in either of my manuscripts.  I wrote it while trying to solidify some of the backstory.  Consider it part of the mythology my cult tells about itself.  You’ll hear the real story soon. 

Clifton Adderly walked north along Railroad Avenue.  He did not expect to find work, but one could hope.  Behind him, Seattle’s Hooverville covered the reclaimed tidal flats with flimsy shacks and despair.  He had no destination, seeking only to leave the squalor behind.  The hardware store he inherited from his father thrived in 1927, four years later, it died.  After a year of living in one of Hooverville’s shanties, Adderly longed for death, and cursed himself for a coward.  He longed for death, but could not take his own life.  He shuffled along, hating himself and wishing for a drink.

“Hey buddy, want to make a dollar?” A voice hissed out of the doorway of a closed hotel.

Adderly hesitated, the exorbitant wage meant something illegal or dangerous, probably both.  But money meant a drink, and a chance to escape his life.

“How?”

“Deliver a package for me.  I’ll give you a quarter, they’ll give you the rest when you get there.”

Adderly thought for only a second, he had not eaten in two days.

“OK.”

Shortly he walked east toward the Japanese and Chinese enclaves at the edge of downtown Seattle, a bulky envelope under his arm and a quarter in his pocket.  He made the delivery and collected his seventy-five cents.  The recipient offered him a tip, a shot of cheap whiskey.  Adderly took a drink, savoring the burning sensation in his throat.  The liquor warmed his body, eased his pain.  The man offered him another dollar to take back a second package.  Adderly agreed readily.

Soon he had a steady source of funds for his painkiller.  Three or four times a week he ran the packages back and forth, always he used the money for pain relief.  The emotional pain faded, eventually so did conscious thought.

He woke up with someone shaking him roughly.  Freezing rain filled his eyes and soaked his clothes.  He lay against a doorway and rubbed his eyes. Even with no light, he could see a Christmas tree in a store window across the street.

“When did it get to be Christmas?”

“About nineteen hundred years ago,” the man shaking him answered, “come with me, we’ll help you out.”

With assistance Adderly staggered to his feet.  His head hurt.  He reached for the flask he always carried in his coat pocket.  It was gone.

“I took that.  You want need it where we’re going.”

“Where are we going?”

“Salvation.  Paradise.”

Adderly let the man lead him to a nearby basement.  A huge picture of Jesus covered the far wall.

The next few days were a blur.  His benefactors fed him, gave him warm clothing, and kept him away from the bottle.  Every night they sat on the floor reading from the Bible and discussing the passages.  Adderly didn’t object, he couldn’t remember clearly when he’d last been warm, dry and fed.

“Who are you?” he asked.

They laughed as the answers came from around the room: “Mark, John, Peter, Mary, Joshua, Elizabeth, Timothy, Pricilla…”

“No,” Adderly objected, “I mean what church is this?”

“We have no name,” the man who called himself Peter said, “we are not a church.  We are just Disciples of God’s word.  We seek only to know what it is Adonai Elohim is trying to tell us through his word.”

“Adda what?”

“The Lord God.”

Adderly stayed in the no-name church because he had nowhere else to go.  He read their literature and studied their methods of interpretation.  One day they baptized him, immersing his body in a tub of water.  When he came they told him he had to decide on a new name for himself, one befitting The Lord Almighty’s new creation.

“Michael,” he said.

There was a hush, a few of his new friends even bowed their heads.

“I told you 1933 was a marked year,” Paul said, “and here he is, right on time.”

-   Excerpt from - Disciples through the Ages.  The Word of God Foundation, Seattle Washington, 1982