The Gospel According to Barry

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BARRY

Barry Dale was a simple man with a complicated life. Fate is often cruel this way, it seems. However this isn’t a sob story for all the simpletons of the world, about how they are unjustly dealt the proverbial “shitty hand”, this is a story about Barry. Barry Dale’s father owned a car shop, so when it was time for Barry to decide what he wanted to do, where other students squandered over college application forms or thought about technical school, the choice seemed pretty simple to Barry.

However, his life didn’t go as simply as it would seem. When Barry was 22 he got married and his father died suddenly of a heart attack. They were working on a car together in the shop. Barry’s father asked Barry for a ratchet and Barry brought him the wrong size. Barry senior, who was drunk at the time, and all the time for that matter, threw the ratchet back at his, “Good for nothin’, half-retarded” son, and before Barry even got a chance to stand up for himself, his father collapsed.

After this, Barry found Jesus and his mother found the bottle. Barry sought some sort of adolescent, misplaced forgiveness for causing his father’s death, and his mother just drank and blamed her son. He would always take care of her though, being that he found Jesus now and all. You see, Jesus teaches us to take care of our family, even if they won’t be saved when He comes again. They are your family, and you are bound to them in this lifetime. Jesus said honor thy mother and father, so no matter how painful, Barry took care of her.

Time would show that Jesus ended up saying a lot of interesting things to Barry Dale.
Barry worked and worked and saved and prayed in those days. He really did better business then it would seem for how tiny his garage was. He was lucky in that his father’s house, well, his house now that he had moved his mother to a “retirement community”, was directly above the shop. By this time, Barry and his wife weren’t getting along very well anymore. After his father’s death when Barry became religious, his wife did not follow suit. This gradually added tension to their arrangement, however as I said earlier, Jesus said to stick by and take care of your family, even if they won’t be saved when He comes again. So that’s what Barry did for 13 long years.

But 13 years was the breaking point, who knows why, maybe because 13 is an unlucky number, but for whatever reason, on the 13th year of their marriage while Barry was replacing break pads in the garage, he heard something. Barry heard a voice. In fact, Barry heard the voice of Jesus. To try and replicate the words of Jesus would be asinine and trite, however the gist of it was Barry you must kill your wife. She has been unfaithful to you and to the lord and for that she must pay eternally. I am coming again soon, Barry, and when I do I will remember what you did for me. I will remember you and you will have a seat in my kingdom.

That night Barry Dale murdered his wife of 13 years with his bare hands. He strangled her at 5:30 in the evening, wrapped up the body and put it in the bed, and still made it to the 7:00 service down the street. There Barry prayed. He prayed for the soul of his wife, and for God to forgive him for his stupidity. He never should have married a woman who didn’t have Jesus in their heart. He told God that he knew he was doing his will, and that he longed for the day that Jesus told him about, the day that he would come again. Jesus said it would be soon, but Barry wondered how soon. Soon could mean a week or a few years, or even a few decades to the Almighty.