Love, unobstructed
Dan Johnson
(c) June 2008

Missouri State Prison
Purdy, Missouri

1952

It is hard to believe; I’ve been behind these walls for 15 years, 3 months, 2 weeks and 17 days and I only have the rest of my life to go until I’m free. How could this love happen, a kind of love that should never happen at all, sadly it did. I remember the day, time, and hour just as I know how long it has been since taking up residence in this unholy place.

The jury said, guilty!
I said, not true , could not be,
Killing, not in me.

I did kill, but you need to know how this all started. It was early summer, 1937, I had just been called to Pastor the Bell Road Church of Christ and we met the day I arrived in town. Being single and a recent college graduate, I knew in my heart that there would be a wonderful young woman just waiting for the right man. You were there with your family; mom, dad and little brother, waiting for me to drive up to the parsonage, the place I would call home. This is how I remember meeting you for the first time. You were two years younger than me, very bright, full of sparkle in your eyes and a smile that could melt the hardest of hearts. I knew at that moment that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.

Sweet smells filled the air
Lilac, jasmine and heavy
air, intoxicating.

It did not take long to realize that I needed a secretary to help keep me organized, and I asked you if you were interested in the job. You did not hesitate in answering…with a hearty “YES!” Then you qualified your statement by saying that you needed to clear it with your dad, who also happened to be the Chairman of the Elders. In short, you started the following Monday. Our relationship spiritually grew with great leaps, each of us feeling the ‘spirit’ leading us together. It wasn’t the ‘spiritual’ feeling that drove us together; it had more to do with the sexual magnetism that grew in our hearts and minds. We should have known that soon, very soon our mutual physical attractions would collide with the force of the mighty stars hanging in heaven above. We also knew there would be a day of reckoning. Perhaps it would come sooner than we expected.

Eyes, watching, always,
On the street, in the shadows,
Eyes, were watching.

One day Mr. Homer Gass came by the office to have a short chat, so he said, but I soon learned his motives were more sinister. Gass was in the office with me for about 15 minutes, when he got up to leave, he lingered, in your office and spoke of devious things. “I can’t help but notice” he said “You and the preacher spend a lot of time together, away from the office, what is it that you two are doing?” I heard him ask you the question, but loved the answer, even more. “Mr. Gass, that is none of your business, end of conversation!” It seems, Gass had grown to a point in his life where he was so miserable, he felt it was his duty to make everyone around him as depressed as he was.

Dark and pathetic
That was Mister Homer Gass.
He spread lies, rumors.

We were growing weary of having to find places where we could exercise our combined lusts; if you recall, we each craved the same thing. Half way between Purdy and Springfield there was a roadside place where we could do what our natural desires thrived and needed. During our first night together; that was when I discovered the fullness of your love, you took me in with succulent passion steaming over, and over. I responded with more explosion than I ever believed I could ever expend. Their in that bed in the deepness of night we discovered our deepest desires. Little did we realize that the eyes we wanted to avoid would follow us to where we lay on soiled, crumpled sheets. There he stood, hiding, lurking in the nighttime shadows, watching our very act. On our drive back to Purdy we decided that we would announce to the congregation, our plans to marry and spend the rest of our lives together, as one. That Sunday came and during the invitation for anyone that needed to come forward and claim Jesus as Lord, the song we sang went to verse two of “Safe Am I” and you moved to the aisle and walked to the front, my heart, my dear, was beating a thousand beats per second, but then, there we stood, just the two of us. It was at this time we told the congregation about our love for each other. We told them that we had been seeing each other and now, we would be marrying. Mister Homer Gass, stood up and said something, which I can’t recall specifically, but it went something like this. “For sometime now I have felt that the preacher and his secretary were living sinful, immoral lives.” He went on to say “I’ll go so far to say that just this past Friday night I witnessed them at The Roadside Inn, having sexual relations, and evidently, enjoying each moment they lay together.” Well, you know how this turned out, and it wasn’t pretty. That Sunday, a day we hoped would be a good day, turned cloudy then dark. You, my dear, ran from the church building, went home got your dads shotgun…then took your life. When I discovered what you had done, I went out looking for Mister Homer Gass and beat him to death with all my might. Mister Homer Gass is dead and I’m soon going to die for my crime.

Good man and bad man
Crash with evil endings
And no one will win.

They are coming now, I’ll walk these halls no more, but soon, very soon we will be together, again. Our love for each other will be forever, unobstructed.

Dan Johnson
June 2008 ©