The Church of Mike

A little girl once asked me if I was a ‘bad guy.’ I suppose it was a fair question—I had just broken into her house to kill her mother… See, I was a hitman for the Polish mob in Chicago. Emphasis on ‘was.’ (Spoiler-alert: Little girl’s mom got a pass.) I only killed bad people. Actually, ‘bad’ is an epic understatement. Do you believe in Evil? The Orellana Cartel. They make the Polish mob look like Nelson Muntz on The Simpsons. Cartel killed my sister Julie 15 years ago…and I was going to keep killing them until I was too old to lift a gun. Or until they got me. Meantime, they kept creeping in on Polish territory, and I kept beating ‘em back—worked out well for the Polish and me. Until one day, I hear this Voice… …Out of thin air. Sounded like Denis Leary smoked a pack of Kools and was half-cocked on Fireball. Scared the shit right out of me, made me miss my shot. Asking me if I’m ‘done with vengeance.’ Hell no, I wasn’t. But what if this was…y’know—The Big Man Himself, The Almighty? I mean, He and I used to be cool, so…maybe? Well, it took some convincing, but I finally came around. Ok, the Voice of God’s speaking to me, I guess, and he sounds like a sleazy stand-up comic—now what? Get the hell out from under the Polish, for starters. Took their money too, because fuck them, that’s why. Tossed my guns, hit the road. Me and the Voice get cozy, I even become a lay minister—two years, on the road, preaching from town to town, a changed man. No, for real! Everything goes sour though, when I blow into Chauncey, this flyspeck, blue-collar town in southern Missouri, to do a guest-speaking gig at Salem Road Gospel Church. I run into the mayor—Paul Glass— torturing some poor sap in a hotel room. Get this—he’s also the elder deacon at the church—yeah, he’s that kinda guy. Turns out, this gem of a human being is a crime boss trying to run the county. Great! Out of the frying pan. So, while me and Glass are locked in a stalemate, the church board hires me as their new pastor, and Glass blackmails me into moonlighting as his enforcer. Now I’m trapped in this Paula Deen hellscape of pick-up trucks, camouflage, and Miller Lite, always looking over my shoulder for the Polish mob, pastoring the biggest church in town, and trying to figure out how the hell I’m gonna get out from under Glass, while I’m actually working for him. Meanwhile, this Voice I keep hearing is pushing me to be some kinda hero, rescue the town from Glass’s ‘evil clutches,’ y’know, and maybe, in the process, find a little redemption for myself. Except…I’m just a lay minister. Never been to seminary. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. The only thing I really know is the Way of the Gun. And I don’t wanna go back down that road… …but I might have to.