Unfinshed Novel Chapter 3

Albion

Albion NY’s claims to fame is that it was the childhood home of Terry Anderson, a former reporter for the Associated Press who was held hostage in the Middle East for over six years. George Mortimer Pullman the inventor of the Pullman luxury railcar, lived there for a time, and a Universalist church in town bears his name.

The population of around seven thousand is predominantly white. The historic Erie Canal crosses a Main Street.

In 1996 the town had four taverns, five pizza places, three convenient stores, a bowling alley, two drug stores, a department store, three diners, and two fast food places. The largest employers were an automotive supply manufacturer, a state prison and a large home mortgage servicing facility.

The old style architecture on Main Street is breathtaking from a distance but a closer inspection reveals old buildings in disrepair and shoddy storefronts slapped on the facades. A breathtaking courthouse sits next to a box of concrete that holds county prisoners.

Another feature of Albion is the lack of entertainment. There are no movie theatres and the bars only host live music sporadically. In other words, Albion is the perfect place to live if you don’t like the hustle and bustle of the big city.

On the contrary, it’s a pretty boring place for someone who lived near a metropolitan area or a large suburb. The lack of activities and the disproportionate ratio of women to men coupled with a slew of cheap apartments run by slumlords gives Albion its character and its unique brand of problems. To an outsider the rural Village is backwards and filled with busybodies who spread gossip like butter on warm toast.

In their first year in Albion, Sean and Sam maintained strong ties with their friends in Hamlin including Eric and Kathy. They still attended the Lutheran Church and Sean was hoping to enter the ministry. He was being encouraged by his Pastor Tom Bergen, who had taken Sean under his wing.

The older members of the conservative Lutheran church had trouble accepting Sean but the younger members, typically in their mid-thirties early forties, seemed to enjoy his sermons. Sean was not rejected entirely by the church; he was elected to represent the congregation at both the state and national church conventions. While it was an honor, Sean always had the sense no one else wanted to be bothered with added responsibility of attending national and regional Lutheran church meetings.

Even Samantha was moderately involved in the church for a while, volunteering at the local food cupboard and participating in Bible study. She would attend Sean’s sermons but she rarely paid attention. Samantha also had a brief stint in a small singing group that spent more time discussing extramarital affairs than rehearsing music.

Sean’s activity in the church led him to look for employment that he felt served God. His quest for a personal holy grail led him to an ad in the newspaper for a company that sold family portraits to churches. Sean felt that somehow God had led him to answer the ad and he figured his activity in his church coupled with his Catholic upbringing would open doors for him and so he interviewed for the position and soon found himself peddling family portraits to his fellow believers.

After he left Alkon, Sean found himself with a lot of extra time on his hands to devote to Bible study and at the request of Pastor Tom he decided that God was leading him in the ministry and that he was destined to start a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church congregation in Albion.

This meant that Sean would actually be spending more time in Albion beyond the quick appearances at Sean juniors’ baseball games.

In spite of the financial trials, the job loss and other challenges, Sean felt blessed. It seemed as if God had provided him with a wonderful family, a mission church and a nice little place to call home. And in a strange way, Sean and Samantha’s marriage worked best when there were wordly problems to keep them focused on each other.

His new job took him to different churches so in a sense he was getting paid to do what he liked best, explore how God worked in the lives of other people. The major downside to Sean’s job was that he worked for commission, an arrangement that Samantha found detestable, she had enough trouble keeping track of the finances when the income was steady and the Sean’s pay fluctuated from extreme highs to dismal lows.

Annually, Sean was making the best money of his life, but by her very nature if Samantha’s manic fits didn’t result in an extramarital affair, they were usually accompanied by absurd spending sprees.

Sean had taken her spending and her nagging in stride, after all she put on a good show in public where it counted. Even though things had improved since the latest reconciliation, his marital problems remained, and were hidden from his church friends, or at least he thought they didn’t notice the cracks and strains.

The first indication that things were heading in the wrong direction in the O’Connor household came when Samantha began an endless tirade about her boss at the post office.She began to claim that he was sexually harassing her and then she was unhappy even working there part time.

She complained about the commute. She complained about her co-workers and Sean did everything he could to convince her to stay because the hours allowed her to be home with their boys and per hour she would be hard pressed to replace the income.

Samantha had other plans and she was bound and determined to quit. Sean was in no position to argue with her, hadn’t he done the same thing when he worked at Alkorn? And Samantha did not enjoy the mundane tasks associated with child-rearing. She was young and wanted to get out of the house. Sam still harbored resentment over the fact she became a mother when she was just 19 years-old.