Where's the goat?

(In this week’s “where’s the goat?” short story contest, we have subtly hidden a goat in the text of this story. The first person to spot the goat wins the chance to use it in a story of their own).

They say his dad fought in Vietnam and that his mum slit her wrists one night after overdosing on cocaine.

But Forgiveness John never let these hardships bring him down, “God gives us these tests to strengthen us,” he said.

Though he never mentioned it in his sermons or speeches, he was perfectly open with all his flock on a one-to-one basis about the sexual abuse he had suffered as a child; his father not just being a drunk and drug fiend, but a genuine all round bad guy. The stories were horrific, the neglect and abuse of a young child, but the fact that John showed forgiveness to his parents for even these sins, gave strength to his church’s followers to show forgiveness in their own lives.

The forgiveness church was housed in a late nineteenth century building that had originally been a church, but which had for many years functioned as a theatre, the type of theatre which regularly featured naked dancers and rarely featured Shakespeare. Reconverting it back into a church sent a powerful message to the city, Forgiveness John argued, “The tide has turned against sin.”

His congregation grew, the one-to-one support he nurtured on his flock, together with the tales of his triumph over adversity, made him a figure his followers would turn to on even the most intimate matters.

The success of the forgiveness church was therefore one of the positive tales the city had to tell. The real story began, however, when John’s brother, Damnation Danny, opened a rival church on the opposite side of the street.

Damnation’s sermons mined the same tragic personal story as that of his brother, but he did not pledge forgiveness, rather he demanded retribution for all sinners, even, nay especially, his own father. “God will strike down all sinners,” he preached, “and we must help him direct his blows.”

In perhaps the most famous incident, he had his father’s corpse dug up, dragged to the road outside his church, where the dead body was stoned by a furious mob from his flock. “That’s right,” he encouraged, “the sinner must be punished, even in death.”

His brother responded to this outrage, which you will realise was also outside his own church, with a 24-hour forgiveness vigil. He and his followers spent an entire 24 hour period in prayer and contemplation, focussing their prayers on forgiving those that had wronged them.

In response to his brother’s vigil, Damnation Danny held a 24 hour vigil of his own, a ‘burn in damnation vigil’. A fire was lit in the front of the church and his followers were encouraged to write down the names of sinners and throw the paper on the flames. As each name burned, Danny offer up a prayed “That those who break the word of god will spend forever in damnation.”

A tension began to emerge between the two sets of followers, fuelled by the city media, who enjoyed a daily story on the two brother’s rivalry. Fights broke out between flocks as they made their way to the two rival morning services and divisions emerged even within families who attended the different churches. One father and son reportedly didn’t speak to each other for over a year.

The rivalry continued for a number of years, during which time, in spite of the continuing strife and the negative media coverage, both congregations grew to record levels. The actual fights dwindled to harsh words and the big, dramatic demonstrations too were reduced to the rivalry of contrasting daily sermons.

Then something extraordinary occurred. A woman emerged who claimed to be the half sister of the two brothers, the daughter of one of their father’s many lovers. More importantly, she claimed that she had lived with the two brothers for a while as a child and that they had both sexually abused her.

This had the positive effect of uniting the two brothers, and the two churches, against the common ‘enemy‘. However, their united response was not the triumph it might have been. In retrospect, it seems clear that neither brother had any knowledge of the existence of a half sister, nor had either brother lived with or abused the girl. But they made the mistake of assuming that the woman was making up everything, including her relationship to them, and publicly called for her to take a DNA test.

When the DNA test proved that her claim to sisterhood was genuine it gave an undeserved credit to the woman’s story, and although the legal case against them collapsed, their careers were ruined. The churches could have continued, such was the strength of support amongst their followers, but both brothers realised that their own congregations were tarnished by the stigma of the false claims and reluctantly closed down the churches. Forgiveness John’s church was turned back into a theatre and Damnation Danny’s would just rot away for many years in disuse. Nobody dared say though, that the tide had turned against religion.

Damnation Danny moved to Arizona, to raise cattle and sheep and other livestock; Forgiveness John is said to have moved to England, where he joined the British army and was appointed as Goat Major, responsible for the care of Mortimer, the regiment goat. What happened to the sister nobody knows, though it is widely believed likely that she came to an unhappy ending.