Taxed
Week 3, Day 3
Distant bells tolled, skipping across the crisp northern air like a flat stone off a lake. Albert looked at the clock hanging on the café wall. The noon hour was upon them, pronouncing itself to an uninterested neighborhood on the wings of a repetitive low B. He turned to Artem Korol, looking slightly up to meet the tall parishioner’s eyes. A stylish five-o’clock shadow and loose black hair framed a youthful, excited gaze.
He felt old. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, he thought, sullenly.
“Want anything to eat?” he asked instead, using his Sunday morning voice to be heard over the murmur of the lunch rush.
Artem shook his head. “Just a coffee sounds perfect.” He moved to retrieve his wallet from a long black wool overcoat, but Albert waved him off.
“Oh, I got it. This is on me.” Arthur had pulled his debit card out of his wallet before coming here. It made for an easier hand-off to the cashier without his having to give away that he was paying for this himself. No need to scare Artem off by broadcasting that the church had no money. Get him excited for the challenge of leadership before laying on the baggage, otherwise you’ll be stuck without a successor.
He couldn’t do it anymore. He needed to get out.
It wasn’t like it used to be, all those years ago when your position at the pulpit came subsidized by your parish. Those were the good old days. The days where belief trumped art for tax exemption status and not the other way around. Four years of college and four years of theology and he still had no idea exactly when the shift officially happened. Oh, he had his suspicions from watching archived VODs during history courses, but the change certainly wasn’t overnight. The Apostasy Act did draw a pretty hard line in the sand, though.
He knew Artem would be a good fit for the future. Three kids, all at Montessori down the street; his husband, Gabriel, working as a Fine Art teacher down at Pratt Arts Center — someone with a better finger on the pulse of today than Arthur ever had. The church needed to evolve and Artem could do it. And if he failed, well…maybe that was just how things needed to happen. Arthur would be gone by then, walking the earth. His god had left a long time ago, gone with the congregation.
Sundays spent with four or five people…tithing and the fund drives built on that little pool of donors couldn’t keep up with the electric bill, let alone the water and trash. At least the state provided free broadband service. Without that they’d have shuttered the building a long time ago.
At any rate, Gabe’s tax status as an Arts teacher would help Artem survive the shortfalls that Arthur knew were lurking in the record keeping stored in the rectory. Well, so long as he could get Artem to say yes to taking the job.
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