Mormon Money

OneNose was losing his patience. Jojo had told him to get himself to some of the biggest Mormon churches and scope out how much might be moving around in the collection plates, baskets or whatever the hell Mormons used to collect money at their meetings. So, not being one to waste time, OneNose decides to skip all the other churches he’s seen and on the very first Sunday he’s in town and gets himself to the Tabernacle where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings for the ten a.m. service for which he had to be in his seat by nine a.m. This is on account of this thing being broadcast on TV everywhere in the planet except freaking Philadelphia. He knew this because his grandmother had made him drive her to her sister’s in Baltimore back before VCR’s just so she could watch it on TV. He didn’t get in the Tabernacle right away because he was busy trying to find a place to take a smoke. He hadn’t never seen “No Smoking” signs outside of buildings before and thought it was a joke at first. But after about twenty people came up to him and politely said, “Welcome to Temple Square. Can I show you where to put out your cigarette?” He decided it wasn’t no joke. And eventually walked outside the wall and dropped it in the street gutter. When he finally got himself into the Tabernacle and found a seat, he pulled a cup of coffee out of a plain brown paper bag and took a slurp. The father of the family sitting next to him leaned over and said, “Food and drink isn’t allowed in the Tabernacle, and if you’ll meet me outside I’ll explain to you why the Lord doesn’t approve of drinking coffee.” In the process of listening to this freaking unbelievable request, OneNose spilled the rest of his coffee on his plaid sport coat. So he just kind of kicked the cup under the pew only to feel a tap on his shoulder and a kid who looked like Opey freaking Taylor handed it back to him and told him he thought he had dropped it. OneNose sat through the whole Mormon Tabernacle Choir program only to watch everybody leave at the end without even no mention or sign of no collection plate. At least four thousand people paraded in and out of that place and not even a tinkle of a thin dime to be heard. It was unbelievable. He waited and left last. Not just to watch for the collection plate. But also because he got himself all choked up over one of the stories they told about the pioneers dying as they walked across half the United States just to get here. He didn’t want nobody seeing his eyes all teared-up, so he kind of kept rubbing them and mumbled “freaking allergies” as he walked out by himself. OneNose was a sensitive guy and this is why he had given up hard-core collection work and got into armed robbery. He couldn’t stand either inflicting or witnessing pain. But in spite of this, he had become pretty good at scaring the crap out of potential victims just to get them to give up whatever it was they had, that he was robbing from them. He walked out of the Tabernacle figuring maybe he had to go into the Mormon Temple itself to cop a look at the collection box. But when he walked up to the front doors and tried to pull them open, he was greeted from behind by a couple of white-shirted missionaries asking if they could have his name and address to send him more information. He said he didn’t give nobody his “freaking, (excuse the French)” name and address, and which door would get him into the big church. They told him only Mormons with special recommendations were allowed to go in and that it was closed on Sundays. “Holy Mary and Joseph” he said. “A church closed on Sundays?”