Like Chaucer's travelers to Canterbury, a company of folks are heading to Jerusalem with Jesus in the 40 day pilgrimage Christians call Lent. Each week during Sunday worship, Crescent Fort Rouge United will meet one of that company in a monologue. This Good Friday, we hear from the Serving Girl who fingered Peter (Mark 14:66-72).
I told him, right to his face.
There are enough people in my life like him – fakes, all of them. Fakes and phonies, think if they toss you a few coins as a tip later that gives them permission to pinch your ass. Or worse. Users, that’s what they are, and I don’t like it. They don’t pay me enough to put up with that crap, pardon my language.
It had been a crazy night, even for this place. Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking, but let me tell you, being a servant girl in the house of the Chief Priest is no different than being the servant girl anywhere else – you’re run off your feet, and certain men take certain liberties. The only difference in working here is that they’re certain they can get away with it. Like I said, they throw a tip at you, buy your silence, give you guilt money.
I don’t know everything that was going down that night, but I know enough to know it’s not a good thing when the boss loses it and starts ripping his clothes and yelling about heretics. No kidding, we could hear him all the way down to the courtyard.
That’s when the penny dropped. That’s when I realized there was a fake sitting by the fire, a phony, one of those guys whose friendship…Well, let’s just say his kind of friendship made me think of those certain men who take certain liberties. A user, a guy who’s your friend when everything’s going good but pretends like he’s never seen you before when the chips are down. A guy who thinks he can get away with it.
It ticked me off. I stared at him, hard. And he didn’t flinch.
So I told him, right to his face. I said, “You were with that guy they brought in, the Nazarene.”
The User says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Can you believe that? Liar. A liar and a User.
So I told some others, and a couple of other people held his feet to the fire. He tried lying some more, but it didn’t work so good. He broke down and cried about the same time that rooster went off.
Most people left then, or turned back to their drinks.
Not me. I stared at him. Just stared.
He thought he was something special, something better than the rest of us.
But he’s just like those guys with roamin’ hands – a user and a phony.
And I told him, too. Right to his face.
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