The Church Wants You - Part 12
The paper arrived during Greg's third week in uniform.
By then nobody remembered what he used to wear.
That was how quickly things changed.
A month earlier students had laughed with him in the gym.
Now they stood when he entered a room.
Five Morality Guards entered his classroom without knocking.
The students immediately fell silent.
Their leader stepped forward and placed a neatly folded document on Greg's desk.
Greg hated when they called him that.
Like they had already rewritten his identity.
The instructions were typed in perfect formatting.
Yet somehow everyone understood it carried authority anyway.
Greg would discontinue physical education.
Greg would cease promoting competitive athletics.
Greg would begin teaching Religious Studies.
Greg would teach from approved texts.
Greg would attend weekly relaxation sessions alongside students.
Greg would support the Standard publicly.
Greg read the paper twice.
The students watched him carefully.
It was as though they had already known.
The leader smiled politely.
"We believe your talents can be used more effectively."
"Physical excellence means little without moral excellence."
The room remained silent.
Greg remembered the flat tires.
His resistance collapsed before it even began.
Placed it carefully on the desk.
The Guards seemed pleased.
One of them wrote something in a small notebook.
As if another successful correction had been completed.
Two weeks later students barely recognized his classroom.
The basketball posters were gone.
Sports equipment had disappeared.
The trophies had been removed.
In their place stood religious banners.
A large portrait hung near the whiteboard.
Students filed inside quietly.
Each desk contained identical books.
The students obeyed instantly.
Greg watched row after row of identical collars and identical haircuts.
For a moment he felt like he was staring at copies of the same student.
"What happened to athletics?"
The room immediately became uncomfortable.
Several students looked at him as though he had said something dangerous.
"The curriculum changed."
The boy slowly lowered his hand.
Nobody asked another question.
Elsewhere the movement continued expanding.
Now they had turned their attention to geography.
A cart filled with globes rolled through the hallway.
Students watched as Morality Guards removed them from classrooms.
The Guards carried the globes away as if handling contaminated material.
One geography teacher followed them.
The answer came immediately.
"The shape of the Earth."
The teacher thought he had misheard.
One Guard pointed toward a newly installed sign.
MORALITY BEFORE KNOWLEDGE.
That was perhaps the strangest part.
Several years ago such an idea would have been absurd.
Now people simply watched.
The cart disappeared around a corner.
The empty shelves remained.
Outside the school things were changing too.
Main Street gained its first checkpoint.
Officially they were information booths.
Community guidance centers.
Voluntary morality stations.
Unofficially everybody knew they were checkpoints.
Young men in white shirts handed out pamphlets.
Most interactions remained polite.
Which somehow made them more unsettling.
One Saturday Greg drove past one.
He saw a teenager distributing pamphlets to strangers.
The boy couldn't have been older than sixteen.
Yet he carried himself like an official representative of something much larger.
People accepted the pamphlets because refusing felt awkward.
Then they kept accepting them because refusing felt risky.
And eventually accepting became normal.
The Morality Guards eventually decided the town itself needed correction.
A delegation appeared before the town council.
They entered in perfect formation.
Council members exchanged amused glances.
The Guards proposed educational reforms.
Public morality programs.
Expanded influence in schools.
The mayor listened politely.
Several council members joined him.
One woman nearly spilled her coffee.
The laughter spread through the room.
The Morality Guards remained completely calm.
They did not become angry.
They simply gathered their papers.
Thanked everyone for their time.
The council continued laughing long after they were gone.
The meeting became a joke around town.
People repeated it for days.
Everyone thought the movement had finally overreached.
Everyone thought reality had reasserted itself.
That evening one council member sat alone in her house.
The laughter from the meeting already felt distant.
A knock sounded at the door.
Three Morality Guards stood outside.
She immediately felt uneasy.
"We only wanted a conversation."
The council member crossed her arms.
The smile never left his face.
Embarrassing information.
Just things that could become extremely uncomfortable if widely discussed.
The woman's confidence vanished.
The leader never raised his voice.
He merely explained how quickly rumors spread.
How fragile reputations could be.
How unfortunate misunderstandings might occur.
Then he spoke about cooperation.
About avoiding unnecessary conflict.
The entire conversation remained polite.
That was what frightened her most.
When they finally left, the woman remained standing in her doorway.
Watching them disappear into the darkness.
The neighborhood looked exactly the same.
Everything appeared normal.
Because she suddenly understood something Greg had learned weeks earlier.
The Morality Guards did not need legal authority.
They didn't need everyone.
They only needed enough people to be afraid.
Enough people to stay quiet.
Enough people to decide that compliance was easier than resistance.
And with every new person who reached that conclusion, the movement grew stronger.
The next council meeting felt different.
Nobody made jokes about white shirts.
The Morality Guards noticed immediately.
Three days earlier they had entered this same chamber and been treated like a punchline.
Now they entered to silence.
The mayor watched them carefully.
Council Member Linda Parker avoided eye contact entirely.
James Wilcox sat unusually rigid in his chair.
Several members looked exhausted.
As if they had not slept.
The leader of the Morality Guards stepped forward.
No presentation board this time.
He placed it on the table.
Nobody asked what was inside.
Because everyone already knew.
The leader looked around the room.
"Our previous meeting was productive."
Nobody mentioned the laughter.
Nobody mentioned how they had been dismissed.
The mayor cleared his throat.
"What exactly are you requesting?"
A small smile appeared on the Guard's face.
The smile of someone who already knew the answer.
"We request cooperation."
The room remained silent.
"We believe the town needs stronger standards."
"We believe educational content should be reviewed."
"We believe public morality programs should be expanded."
"We believe the council should support our efforts."
Mayor Henderson glanced around the room.
Normally there would have been arguments.
Instead he found nervous faces.
People staring at the table.
People avoiding eye contact.
People who suddenly seemed interested in anything except speaking.
Finally Council Member Wilcox spoke.
His voice sounded weaker than usual.
The conversation continued for nearly two hours.
Not once did anyone laugh.
Not once did anyone openly challenge the Guards.
Every proposal received discussion.
Every suggestion received consideration.
Every request was treated seriously.
The balance of power in the room had changed.
The reason became clearer over the following week.
One council member opened her door to find two young men holding pamphlets.
Asked if they could discuss community values.
Thirty minutes later she sat pale-faced on her sofa while one of them quietly referenced financial records that were not public.
The conversation remained calm.
When they left she locked every door in the house.
Another council member received visitors during dinner.
His wife answered the door.
Praised the neighborhood.
Then casually demonstrated how much they knew about his son's recent arrest.
An arrest that had never reached newspapers.
An arrest nobody outside the family should have known about.
The council member felt his stomach drop.
The visitors never threatened him.
They simply explained how communities functioned best when leaders worked together.
The next morning he called the mayor and recommended taking the movement more seriously.
By the end of the month every council member had received some variation of the same visit.
Some were shown old scandals.
Some were reminded of embarrassing secrets.
Some merely realized how much information the movement had gathered.
That realization alone was enough.
The Morality Guards seemed to know everything.
Who paid cash for things they preferred not to explain.
Most of it was not criminal.
Most of it was simply human.
But ordinary weaknesses become powerful weapons when exposed to public judgment.
Especially in a town increasingly obsessed with morality.
Meanwhile the checkpoints multiplied.
More volunteers appeared.
More pamphlets circulated.
More conversations were recorded.
People began censoring themselves without being asked.
Teachers chose safer topics.
Business owners avoided controversy.
Parents monitored what their children said.
Nobody ordered these changes.
Fear rarely announces itself.
It quietly rearranges behavior.
At the next council meeting the atmosphere felt almost ceremonial.
The Morality Guards entered.
The mayor even welcomed them.
Additional chairs had been prepared.
Coffee had been provided.
Council members greeted them politely.
As though they were respected advisors rather than outsiders.
The leader took his seat.
And for the first time seemed genuinely pleased.
Because he no longer needed to fight.
The council members sat listening.
As proposal after proposal was discussed.
Outside, Riverdale looked unchanged.
But beneath the surface something fundamental had shifted.
The town council had stopped asking whether the movement should have influence.
Now they were discussing how much influence it should have.
And that was a far more dangerous question.
The leader opened another folder.
And for the first time, nobody in the chamber seemed willing to tell him no.
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