3 - Lily and Theodore Noir
On October 20 of 1931, the day Hitler addressed a Nazi Party
rally in Bad Harzburg, Germany and demanded the resignation of the government--that
same day, in Barnstable, Massachusetts, Francis Assis Noir was born to a
Nazarene family.
☼
His mother, Lily, had come from the Côte d’Azur--Cannes on the
French Riviera. She had come with his father to the states after being
nauseated watching the young ladies at Cannes
His father, Theodore, was from Lyon. He had been disgusted
by the Catholics in his neighborhood, who had fornicated on Saturday and
confessed on Sunday. Since he had early onset arthritis, he had moved to Cannes
for the warm weather.
They had met at a meeting of citizens who had gathered to close
down a neighborhood brothel. Their efforts had failed. The French, after all,
had loved their brothels.
Nevertheless, Theodore and Lilly had fallen in love. Before
long, they had heard of a religion in the New World that felt as they did about
sinners, Jews, and Catholics--Nazarene. Soon after, they had been married by
the minister of a local Pentecostal church and had boarded a ship bound for New
York.
☼
Some said they should have just stayed around Cannes for a few
years. They might have liked Vichy France
☼
They arrived in New York in time for the Great Depression. They
had sold everything they had in France
Totally appalled, by the crudeness of New York, they had headed
for Massachusetts. Barnstable had not been a traditional witch-burning town
like Salem, but it had had a Nazarene church and Theodore had found a sign in
the window of a woodworking shop, advertising for a craftsman. Theodore had
applied and had been hired, and the Noir’s had joined the community of
Barnstable.
The Nazarene’s had been a small segment of the community and,
even though Massachusetts had had a history of radical religious groups that
hated each other, the Noirs were considered black sheep. Massachusetts had
grown up by the late 1920’s and Catholics and Baptists had often spent their
leisure time together at picnics and neighborhood ballgames.
☼
One day, Theodore came across a Congregationalist minister
expounding on the possibility of the miracles of Jesus being psychological,
rather than physical, miracles. Theodore punched the minister in the incisors
and proclaimed that God had ordained him to dispense physical miracles upon sinners.
When the Presbyterian, next door, came home with a Christmas
tree Theodore was aghast. The neighbors had cut the string that held the tree
to the car roof and had laid the tree on the ground and then gone inside to make
room for it. Theodore took a spare can of gas out of his garage, poured it on
the tree, and lit a match.
The neighbors came out of their house screaming at him.
Theodore stared them down. “God is speaking to you from a
burning bush.”
Theodore and Lily had made few friends in the community and
Lily had to frequently bail him out of jail for expressing himself using his
two ‘physical miracles.’
Lily had had her own problems. She had refused to buy a
newspaper from the legless newspaperman downtown. She told him God would not
have allowed him to be maimed if he had not been getting the European girls
pregnant during World War I.
The legless man had never been with a woman in his life. He had
been a chaplain in the corps. He had lost his legs while he was administering
the last rights to a pair of little girls, who he had found dead by the side of
the road. When he had turned them over, so they would not have their faces in
the mud while he administered the rights--the grenade had gone off. They had
been booby-trapped and left for the Americans to discover.
While they had earned the scorn of the general community, the
Nazarenes had applauded their fight for God’s Laws. The church had been a
little embarrassed by their tactics. Nevertheless, a collection had been taken
up, one Sunday when they had both been in jail.
A deacon from the church went down to the jail to bail them
out. He drove them to an ice cream shop and bought them both vanilla ice cream
sodas. “The church admires your adherence to the Lord’s word. We need two young
swords of the Lord. What would you think of an offer from the church to pay all
your expenses to go to seminary school and become formally charged with the
Lord’s work?”
The Noir’s agreed. They thrilled that a group of people
recognized them for their devotion and unwavering adherence to God’s
principles.
☼
Seminary school was a challenge. They got into several
squabbles with the teachers over the intent of biblical verses. They almost
were kicked out for insubordination. The deacon from Barnstable made a
pilgrimage to the college to argue in their behalf. Eventually, a meeting was held and
the Noir’s agreed that they would behave themselves. They needed church
recognition to continue their campaign.
They fit in better than one might imagine. There were no
dances. No music was allowed. There was no liquor. Young ladies and young men were
required not only to bunk in separate dorms but also to attend separate
classes. There were no ballgames.
Yes, they fit in rather well. It was as close to they would
ever get to living in what they considered a perfect world.
A month before they graduated, the Barnstable church offered
them positions of minister and associate minister. It had seemed that the main
minister had died of the croup and the associate minister had left without a
word, upon hearing the news of his minister’s death. There were two vacancies
to fill. This would keep the Noirs together.
Stories had circulated for a coon’s age about the previous
ministers, as to whether or not they had been homosexuals.
As soon as the Noirs became installed, Lily and Theodore set out to deprive the ex-associate minister
of his ability to preach in another church, because of his alleged
homosexuality.
Surprisingly, there were enough calm heads in the church
hierarchy to stop the motion and it had died stillborn.
☼
Despite their best efforts to deny it, eventually Theodore and
Lily had to admit that they had sexual designs on each other. They rationalized
it had been God’s will to continue the new line of faithful servants.
The congregation never knew it, but Lily became pregnant one
night on a church retreat. Just after admonishing their parishioners to go to
their rooms and concentrate chastely on God’s Plan for their lives, the two
zealots found themselves alone in the chapel. Lust overtook them and, for the
first time since they had met two years earlier, they made wanton sex--right up
there in front of all of the pews.
It was the first time that they ever had sex, and Lily had been
surprised by its effect upon her. She had never ever called out to the Lord so
often in her life before. Theodore came away with a thirst for the flesh he had
never known existed.
They both covered themselves and slunk sinfully off to their
quarters before anyone could discover the deed.
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