Roy was sitting on the front porch, reading books by some obscure writers from early twentieth century England. Laughing and making notes in the margins. Patrick was tending to the little garden that occupied the entire side yard. It was Saturday, and both were feeling splendid.
The newspaper boy rode up the driveway and gave Roy his newspaper.
"What's in the news, Bobby?" Roy asked.
"I dunno," the boy said.
"Well, you're the newsboy, aren't you?" Roy said, laughing. "Aren't you supposed to know what's in the newspaper?"
"I just deliver 'em; I don't much read 'em. There's a story about some preacher coming to town, though. That's kinda different."
Roy looked down at the paper. The front story caught his attention like it had the delivery boy's: "Famous Preacher Coming to Town."
Hmmmm, Roy thought to himself, walking slowly over to Patrick as he glanced through the story.
"Patrick, are we living in the early twentieth century South?"
"Not last I knew," Patrick said.
"Early nineteenth century New England?"
"Nope; pretty sure no."
"Then why would a preacher coming to town make the front page of our local newspaper?"
He handed the newspaper to Patrick, who quickly read it.
"It says the preacher's name is Paul Ivywood," Patrick said, looking at his uncle like the name might sound familiar.
"Yes, I noticed that," Roy said, thinking. "Paul Ivywood. A preacher with a PR machine, apparently. Last names are easily changed. Come on, Patrick, to the Beer Room!"
The two walked to the backyard and approached the locked cellar doors. Roy reached to the ground and picked up a corroded can of Schlitz that was buried, half crushed and tilted, in the dirt next to the doors. From the bottom of the can, who took a small key, which he used to open the cellar doors. He and Patrick walked to the bottom of the stairs, to an iron door, which Roy opened, using his regular house-key.
They walked into a big room that stretched the entire length of Roy's backyard. It was filled with library of about four thousand books, three computers, and an assortment of gadgets. The south wall contained hundreds of pictures of villans, past and present: Carry Nation, Frances Willard, Omar Khayyam.
"Patrick, check the cams to see if there's any activity at the Temples. I'll go through archives."
Patrick walked to the west wall. It housed over a dozen monitors, all of which turned un with one switch. The monitors immediately started presenting live footage from the town's array of taverns and bars. Three monitors alone focused on the Houndsditch, a seedy area of town with more bars per square foot than any other area in the state.
Patrick watched them intently while Roy started submitting queries and bringing up information from a vast newspaper and magazine database with articles going back as far as 100 years.
After about five minutes, Roy called to Patrick. "Found some stuff on Paul Ivywood. Pretty much says the same things that our newspaper said. He's a preacher, been around for many years, talks about salvation and, wait a second."
Roy read for a few minutes, then said, "Patrick, listen to this. It's from a John Waddles, some guy writing for an alternative newspaper in New York."
Roy then read the following out loud:
Paul Ivywood is a puritan in dignified wire frame glasses and an academic air. Those who have met or listened to Ivywood no doubt would scoff at me. "A puritan with condoms in his pockets! Come on, John!" But I'm telling you, everything about him breathes puritanism. His words, his props, his views on sexuality, those things aren't puritan, but he is.
You see, puritanism isn't about things, really. Physical things change, issues of the day change, but the intellectual and metaphysical, those things are permanent.
If puritanism–either as a term of derision or a coherent form of social thought–is to have any relevance, there must be a worldview, a philosophical stance, underlying it. Once you understand that worldview, you can then apply it to almost anything: booze, tobacco, sex are the obvious ones, but also music, sports, gardening, or sitting on your porch doing nothing.
Puritanism as a worldview is fundamentally a denial of the goodness of creation, finding the source of evil in material things of pleasure (as tobacco, alcohol, art, and so on) rather than in the disordered human will to misuse the good things nature affords us. The Puritans' fondness for legal prohibitions or requirements, as well as their presumption of their own moral superiority have given religion a bad name in America.
"Holy Wisdom!" Patrick said, getting out of his chair and walking over to Roy. "Someone actually wrote that and got it published? That's amazing."
"Listen to the rest," Roy said, smiling.
In Paul Ivywood, puritanism breathes. On tobacco, he is relentless and uncompromising. If given the opportunity, he would deny the fundamental joy that many men find in a pipe or cigar, emphasizing the adverse future health effects. On alcohol, he understands the ridiculousness (not to mention unpopularity) of the Volstead Act, so he doesn't attack it directly. Rather, his attacks are on the peripherals: drunk driving, the need to restrict the number of bars, alcoholism as a disease that requires 100% abstinence.
On sex, things are a little trickier. He emphasizes safe sex and only nods to abstinence because it is, undeniably, the most effective way to prevent teenage pregnancies and sexually-transmitted diseases.
And believe it or not, it's in his acknowledgment of sexual abstinenance's effectiveness that Paul Ivywood shows himself at his most puritan.
You see, there's one other aspect about puritanism that I didn't mention earlier. In seventeenth century New England, puritanism was about gaining the heavenly kingdom. In twenty-first century America, it's about the same thing, but now it's the heaven-on-earth kingdom.
Progress, progress, progress. Puritanism is about effectiveness and advancement. The progressive isn't always a puritan (far from it), but the puritan is always a progressive. I hope we're all progressives, but not of the puritan sort–militant and uncompromising and relegating everything to the future and progress.
And that's Paul Ivywood: Militant on advancement, suspicious of creation's goodness. When the two elements conflict–as they do on sex due to its prevalence in our culture–advancement always wins in the puritan's world because the puritan's world is always fixed on the future, what will be. The idea of enjoying something now, because it is good and fun, wholly escapes him.
"Wow," Patrick said. "That's remarkable. It sounds exactly like Puritan Paul."
"I think it is Puritan Paul," Roy said.
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. Look at the picture. This Paul Ivywood is a little heavier than Puritan Paul and the hair lighter, but that's probably just graying with age. Ivywood has a light beard, but that obviously could be grown, and the glasses are new."
"But Puritan Paul was sent to Laughingstock Jail, with no reasonable possibility of parole. I thought he was a lifer, like Dan Quayle."
"So did I, but apparently he escaped and changed his last name."
"But wouldn't he have changed his first name, too?"
"Probably should have, but apparently kept it, probably figuring Paul is a pretty common name."
"Boy, if he saw this Waddle guy's article, he was probably really bumming. Paul and puritanism; puritanism and Paul. With this article, a lot of people will make the connection."
"Yeah, if a lot of people saw it. Apparently this isn't one of New York's better-circulated alternative papers. The article was published two months ago. This is the first I'd seen it."
They stood there for a few minutes, reading back over the article and looking at the pictures.
Roy said, "Take a look at some of these other pictures I found of Paul Ivywood. There's definitely a similarity with Puritan Paul. There are other similarities. Puritan Paul had no children but was a big advocate of the rights of children. Ivywood likewise has no children and is always talking about the evils of child abuse and the need for children's rights, according to this piece I found in The Sphere. Puritan Paul was for gun control; so is Ivywood, according to this piece in The Planet. Puritan Paul was from the East coast; so is Ivywood. The similarities keep piling up, I'm convinced it's him."
A beeping noise went off. Patrick walked quickly over to the monitors. "There's some sort of disturbance in the Houndsditch, Roy."
Roy leaped over and looked. "A big brawl in the street, almost looks like patrons from two different establishments fighting each other."
They watched for a few minutes, then Patrick exclaimed, "Hey, that's Puritan Paul! Right there, in the lower right corner of the screen!"
"You're right, Twothree. To the Beer Mobile!
They quickly ran out of the Beer Room, to the garage, Twothree laughing. Beer Man always cracked him up with the "To the Beer Mobile" bit.
