The Second Doublewide on the Right, part 38

I’m Fixin’ To Present Part 38 of The Second Doublewide on the Right:

The Reverend Ricky Lee Jones’ church apartment was small, but well appointed and quite comfortable. It was constructed in a straight line, since that was the only choice the church attic space offered. The first room was his kitchen and dining area complete with a stove, fridge, sink, counter top and cabinets.

A wide opening with no door led from the kitchen to the living room, which was richly carpeted and furnished. Beyond it was a door leading to the bedroom, and beyond the bedroom was a door leading to the bathroom. It had all cost a great deal of money, all paid from his cache of cash.

The place where he kept the cash was ingenious.

He had constructed it himself after everything else was completed.

It was behind the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, where he had constructed a small set of shelves. To cover the shelves he had installed clasps to the sides of the medicine cabinet so it could be snapped in and out of its socket in the wall without any outward clue of the possibility of such.

On the shelves behind the medicine cabinet the bills were stacked in bundles by denomination. The ones were on the bottom, the fives on the second and so on up to the hundreds on the top shelf.

Reverend Ricky Lee liked to count the cash, so that night after he had his dinner he had snapped the medicine cabinet out of the wall and counted his money.

He was averaging taking in about three thousand a week from the collection plate, and he still had money left from his heist from his former church in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. In all he counted a little over eighty thousand dollars stacked up on his secret shelves. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was a comforting amount, enough so that he could flee in case of his ever being discovered.

It had been almost a year since he had distanced himself from his former church and his former romantic liaisons, and as time went on he felt more comfortable every day. If anybody was looking for him, he figured they weren’t looking too hard.

He had purchased the property and the building under the name of The Church on Highway 86 North, and the utility bills were all registered the same way. When the bills arrived in his mailbox out beside the highway, they were all addressed to The Church. In addition, he had no credit cards, but he did have a wall full of cash.

After he had counted all his money and tucked it back safely in its hiding place, he began to work on his upcoming sermon. He wanted to make it really special in the hope that Marthelene would be there. After he went to sleep that night he had vivid dreams of her.

Saturday was always his day for sprucing up the grounds and cleaning the church. He spent the morning putting gravel into a few pot holes in the parking lot and touching up the outside sign and the front door with some paint. Then he spent the remainder of the day cleaning the inside of the church. He swept, polished and cleaned.

When he was satisfied, he inhaled deeply and confirmed to himself that the inside of the church smelled fresh and clean.

While he was wondering what else he could do, he realized he was searching for ways to pass the time.

She had told him he could call her anytime, but he figured that would be like eating desert before dinner. No, he wanted to preach to her first, to preach about the forgiveness of sins through the grace of the Savior.

But the question was, how was he going to get through the night?

Later that night the reverend found some help that came straight from the Devil. The Devil lived inside of a bottle of Jim Beam, and the reverend let him out about nine o’clock that night and didn’t put him back in until just before midnight when he was fixing to pass out.