Bible Store Blues

i.

One day my friend Mindy and I decide we must find jobs.

I already have one. I work for three hours at a week at the used bookstore near my house. I make $7 an hour. This is an astonishing amount of money, yet I feel I must find a real job.

For the past three months I have been coming home from school, taking a nap, eating dinner, and going online. Then I fall asleep again. I have time for a job.

ii.

The library is not hiring. They give us applications anyway. We carefully place them in the backseat of my car. We never see them again.

iii.

Our next stop is the parking lot of the Bible store. This store used to be a church. I used to attend that church. When my family moved to Mullica Hill I insisted we go to church. I am not sure which part of my four-year-old mind church appealed to, but I pretty quickly regretted my religious fervor.

We go to the Hilltop and ask for applications. The girl at the counter says they are not hiring. We should have guessed; all the waiters are standing around eating stale cake.

As a joke, I walk into the Bible store and say I am looking for a job. Mindy stands on the second floor and laughs while I speak to the owner. She is noncommittal (“We’re not hiring right now”) until she asks me to write my name and phone number down.

“Oh! Ellen Rhudy!”

And then she says that one of her two employees is pregnant and she will need someone to replace her in about three weeks.

iv.

My father is the mayor.

v.

We also go to Electric Mobility. They manufacture the Rascal scooter. We accept the thick, five-page-long applications handed to us by the receptionist and fill them out.

To complete my application, I must return for a group interview the next week. I don’t find this out until I return a few days later to hand in my application.

When the owner of the Bible store calls to ask me in for an interview, I go. I do not have to fill out an application. I bullshit her for fifteen minutes. We do not discuss religion. She offers the job. I accept. I throw out my Electric Mobility application.

vi.

My second week there, my boss begins to quiz me on religion. Is she already suspicious? I admit that I do not know how old a child is when she goes through communion. I have a vague memory that my friend Kara went through communion when she was 15. Or was that confirmation?

vii.

I pretend to have a sincere, anthropological interest in religion when I tell people about my job. This is not quite a lie.

viii.

On my first day I meet a woman named S. She does a Christian radio program on Mondays. Every Monday she calls and asks to speak to the owner. When I say the owner isn’t in, which she usually isn’t when S calls, she says, “uh…uh…” That is when I ask if I can take a message and S says she was just calling to see if J was going to listen to her show.

An hour later S always calls back to ask if J listened. I don’t know, I always say. “uh…uh…” she says. Then we awkwardly remove ourselves from the conversation and hang up.

ix.

The store sells Bibleman action figures, videos and t-shirts. J tells me that she had thought no one would buy the action figures—they’re fairly ugly and campy—but they are one of the bestselling items in the store. This means we sell maybe one action figure every few weeks.

After three months at the store I order two Bibleman shirts. I figure it is about time. I give one to my friend Rob. The other I will keep for myself.

x.

In June, a woman comes in looking for a Bible. She would like to look inside before buying one, she says, but all the Bibles are covered in plastic wrap. She explains that she wants to be sure it is the sort of reading she is looking for. Recent versions of the Bible have not been honest in carrying God’s word. They have been changing it, making it more acceptable, more palatable. She does not want this.