Flanders Nickels suddenly discovers a girl in his high school who is dressed in blue jeans and long-sleeved blue shirt and vest, and he falls for her instantly. Her name is ‘Se Marier Clark,’ and she is as pretty as her outfit. But her presence conflicts with two wars against himself that he is fighting in his head. And he must keep his mind off of her. And he most certainly must not ask her out. But she kind of likes him. And he gives in and goes on a date with her at home, and she goes on to share with him her wisdom as a born-again believer. And his two wars are resolved in his private life to the glory of Christ.
THE CLASSY SNAZZY GIRL
By Mr. Morgan P. McCarthy
He looked up from his desk in French class where he sat, and what he saw came upon him in a wave of awe. It was a girl, a back of a tall girl, standing right in front of him only a few feet away. And she was dressed in the most exciting outfit that he had ever seen, her clothes accentuating the so comely frame of the girl. The back of her head that he saw was full of alluring long gentle curves of dark blonde hair down past her shoulders. She had on a ladies’ vest that was white with tiny colored flowers all over upon the white. And she had on a long-sleeved solid blue dress shirt underneath that vest. And she had on faded blue jeans with two back pockets. And she had on black canvas sneakers with white soles. He wondered upon her socks, if she had any on. What a girl! Instantly this strange young woman cast his heart into a spell of magic. It was a major crush on her at first sight. Who was she? What was her name? Where did she come from?
It was the year 1979. It was the beginning of this man’s twelfth grade. This was Pulaski High School. And this class was Seminar in French. And it was the third hour of the seven class hours of
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this high school’s class day. And his name was Flanders Nickels.
Then Flanders heard a girl call out to this enchanting girl, “Se Marier, I know what your name means in French.”
So this girl was called, “Se Marier.”
And Se Marier answered her and said, “I know what it means, too. Don’t tell everybody.”
And this other girl said, “It means ‘to get married.’”
“Boys might have heard you say that,” said Se Marier to this other girl. “Mom and Dad were first going to call me ‘Mary’ instead.”
“Hm,” said the other girl. “’Mary Clark.’ That doesn’t sound as good.”
So this girl’s name was “Se Marier Clark.”
Then this irresistible new girl said “Se Marier Catherine Clark.”
Whoa, her full name now! And what a name for what a girl!
Then she turned around, and Flanders now saw her front side. It was even better than her back side. Her face was as pretty as her hair. The full and long gentle curves of her dark blonde hair completely covered her forehead and went down both sides of her pretty head to past her shoulders. Her vest that he so loved was a vest that had no buttons; it covered her shoulders at the top; and it reached to her belly. Her long-sleeved solid blue shirt was buttoned up at the cuffs. Her blue jeans had two pockets in front and a watch pocket and it had a button/zipper closure. She had no belt in the belt loops. And he could now see black socks over her feet. And her black canvas sneakers also had white shoelaces. He thought dreamily to himself, “Ah, my classy snazzy girl.” And from then on, any girl who wore a long-sleeved shirt and a ladies’ vest and blue jeans were officially in his nomenclature “classy snazzy girls.” And this Se Marier Clark was the classiest and the snazziest of all such girls who dressed this way.
Then suddenly his life and its harsh realities came back down upon Flanders Nickels. This girl
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was off-limits to him. All girls were off-limits to him. It was morally wrong to be looking at this mysterious classy snazzy girl. It was morally wrong to be looking so at any of the high school girls.
It was morally wrong to feel anything like this of any woman. Romance and crushes and falling in love he called collectively, “corruption.” And he believed this with all of his body and with all of his conscience and with all of his mind. His heart told him, “Be utterly asexual.” Anything else was not right in a man’s life. Indeed Flanders’s three most hated words of the English language were, “sex,” and “sexy,” and “sexual.” He chose to be pure and clean and proper.
His interest in girls, though, had not started this day with Se Marier with himself being a high school senior. Back in tenth grade, he had discovered his first pretty girl in an English 10 magazine: it was Lindsay Wagner the Bionic Woman of that TV show of the time. And from that moment on, Flanders had declared war against himself in his attempt to put down any more such thoughts, as clean at they might have been, about Miss Wagner and all other pretty and well-dressed girls whom he had discovered since. He called the entire gamut of all that he did and liked about girls, “Mental.” He called all of this “Mental,” simply because it was in his head. He was one to coin words borrowed from the normal English language and to give them new and personal definitions to them all about his own self. And his war against Mental raged these two years past, and yet he kept looking at girls who caught his eye. And he had not had victory yet over this new thing that had come into his life a couple years ago.
And now he had to fight himself against this classy snazzy girl, the prettiest girl of Pulaski High School. Last year, on his seventeenth birthday, in his sincerity, when the family gathered around the lit birthday cake and asked him to make a wish and blow out the candles, his secret wish was a sincere secret prayer to God asking God to never let him find a girlfriend. Were such a fate to befall Flanders and he did find a girlfriend, he would have lost the war against Mental, and he would be humiliated and ashamed for the rest of his life. He must never come to desire a girlfriend in his life. He would be
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ruined. He secretly liked women, and he was too ashamed to let anyone else find out. And he was too proud of a boy to confess such corruption in himself. His enticements with Mental in his time alone was nothing at all pornographic. He did not feast after dirty thoughts or make up dirty jokes or look at dirty pictures. He was one to look upon pretty faces and to admire pretty clothes worn by girls and to look into all of the high school yearbooks. But afterwards, he always assumed that he had done a bad thing in his enjoyment of all of that Mental.
And Flanders Nickels was careful not to let Se Marier find out that she was his “hottest girl of school.” But she was his primary focus all of this senior year. He found out that she was a junior.
And she was in two of his other classes of his school day. She was in his first hour American Literature class and in his third hour Seminar in French class and in his seventh hour Modern Chemistry class. She was also a Red Raider basketball cheerleader in Pulaski High School maroon and white. And she took part in the Junior Miss pageant. And she lived in a countryside full of Christmas trees. In American Literature class Se Marier sat in the desk immediately to his left, both he and she in the back desk of their respective columns of desks in the classroom. In Seminar in French class, he always arrived there with much burden of trepidation that she would be there. And in Modern Chemistry class one day, she had her vest off and fellow students were playing around with it in fun. Though he forbid himself to take a good look at Se Marier at school—lest she find that he had a crush on her—he did borrow yearbooks from other students just to gaze upon her pictures in these yearbooks.
But Flanders Nickels’s valley of storms of Mental in its good times and in its repercussions was not the only valley of storm in his own little world. There was a new thing that had come into his life that brought very disturbing psychological thoughts into his head. He saw this new valley as a powerful intangible foe who attacked his head with crazy thoughts. He called this new enemy “Psychology.” because it was psychological. This Psychology, as he called it, could best be described as when a person tries to do his best to not think about a certain thing, and ends up thinking only about
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that certain thing. Reader, have you ever tried on purpose not to think about something? And such a thing quite came upon Flanders and did consume him with devouring. And its fuel was “Mental.”
And it was all and only about girls. And much was dirty rotten foul. And much was clean and okay and all right. But both dirty and clean thoughts alike disturbed Flanders most psychologically. Where Mental’s thoughts were fun, Psychology’s thoughts were painful. And Se Marier became abundant “fuel” for Psychology to prey upon Flanders. For example, when riding in the car one day with Mom and Dad, they passed a Clark Gas Station. And that was a reminder to Flanders of Se Marier’s last name, which was “Clark.” That stung his head with a hit from Psychology. For another example, one day when Flanders was writing down what homework he had to take home that day from school, Psychology hit him again in the following thought: Having written down “M.C.” for “Modern Chemistry” and following through with writing down what his Modern Chemistry homework was for that day in his official sheet, this innocent “M.C.” suddenly struck him as “Se Marier Clark,” in her own “M.C.” Ouch! Psych out! And it got worse after that for him in twelfth grade with this Miss Clark. And on one day off from school, Flanders Nickels rode his bicycle to an ice cream place in Howard. And when he got there to enjoy his chocolate custard ice cream cone, it struck him that Se Marier were also here now. He did not see her really here. But she could be here. He did not dare look. He was afraid of her now with Psychology in his life like this. And his meal was ruined on a crazy psychotic hunch of a girl who was not really there. And all throughout his senior year with Se Marier in his classes as she was, his bane of Psychology had so kept his mind psyched out with this girl that he in his own little naming officially declared her to himself as “Psychology’s greatest servant.”
This Psychology had been born into his life in eleventh grade, just last year, in his second semester.
It had indeed begun to persecute him before he discovered Miss Clark, but when Miss Clark came into his life right away in twelfth grade, Psychology found a new girl to disturb his thought s with most daily. And this classy snazzy girl knew nothing about his Mental and nothing about his Psychology.
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These days of September 1979, Psychology was attacking him with about 150 hits per day. When it had become born into his life in February 1979, it had only 30 hits per day. And it had grown to 150/day before his junior year ended. Away from school, on summer vacation, Psychology had diminished back down to about 30/day. But right away back to school in this senior year, before September 1979 had ended, it was right back up to 150/day. What went on in high school disturbed him profoundly. He had deemed it wise to count these thoughts all day every day so that he knew where he stood in this war in his head. He felt a need to be informed about how big Psychology was on any given day. Who knew how bad this was going to get next month in October? As if his own thoughts did not drive him into madness, the worldly talk of all the students, and the carnal teaching from the teachers, and all of those swear words spoken everywhere, and all of the flirting and all of the making out, and all of the dirty jokes going around that he could not escape—all these—shocked him. And all these came back to his memory, bringing more of these Psychology attacks into his mad mind. How could he endure this high school year of 1979-1980? And if he lost his war against Psychology, what would become of him? He contemplated this dread end. He called it, ‘The Other Side.” And he called it “Satan’s Realm.” Then he would have 1000 hits/day. It may have been called by experts, “catatonia.”
And his only times when he was not hurting in his head was when he was asleep in bed for the night. These were “The Dark Days.” And Psychology was now worse for him than even Mental. He was afraid of life. He was more afraid of death. His life was a war with two fronts. And this time when his birthday came around, when he turned eighteen, his secret wish was a prayer to God to let him kill Psychology. And Se Marier in this senior year of his now became “the King of Mental.”
And in French class one school day something happened that made that one day the worst day of his life. Se Marier Clark in front of the whole class went ahead and teased him about his different colored socks. This did not hurt his pride. This was not offensive in itself. This brought him no shame
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for his idiosyncrasy. It was was not a cut at him. He liked to wear different colored socks to school every day, and he felt good about being different. After all, he was both a nonconformist and an eccentric, and he liked his fashion statement that made him different. And Se Marier was not trying to hurt him. He knew all of this. But her simple tease he took to be an affectionate flirt with him. This beautiful and scary classy snazzy girl kind of liked him. That was why she said what she said to him in front of everybody. And his wars had never been tested by something as baneful as a coquettish tease by such a girl as Se Marier. How could he overcome this irresistible young woman now that he knew that she saw him as a cute guy? And he came in his private thoughts to declare, “If I am not done in with Mental, I am done in with Psychology. And if I am not done in with Psychology, I am done in with Mental.” He bravely put on a straight face, gave no reply, and gave Miss Clark a furtive glance and quickly turned away. Nobody was the wiser. And the classy snazzy girl could not tell what he was feeling now. When he came home that day from the school bus, he quickly marched to the little barn way out back, looked around for something to throw really hard that would really break, and found an empty glass bottle on a big old rickety table. He picked up this glass bottle, aimed it at the bare wall of this big storage building, and thought to throw it as hard as he could right into the wall. But then who would clean up all of the glass that would be all over the dirt floor? And he set back down the bottle onto the old table. And he walked out of the little barn and back to the house. Surely now Flanders would be a wreck before too long; but he wanted to live and be happy; he must not give up.
A few weeks later, in Spanish III class, Se Marier’s big sister told Flanders, “My little sister got born again last week. She seems happier now and is much easier to get along with. And now she’s looking for a Christian boyfriend. Flanders, you don’t say or do things like us lost people say and do. Do you know anybody who is looking for a Christian girlfriend?”
“Se Marier is now a born-again believer?” asked Flanders.
“Yeah, Flanders. And she is on fire for God,” said the big sister. “And she says that God wants
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her to have a Christian man in her life. And she is looking now.”
“I don’t know of any Christian boys in high school here,” he said to her. “Did you say that she got born again?”
“Yeah,” said the big sister.
“What are born-again girls like?” he asked.
“They don’t tell bad jokes. They don’t make out with boys. They don’t use swear words. They don’t talk the talk that the rest of us do. They don’t do things like the world. They think differently when it comes to dating boys. And they have the love of God in them. And they want a boyfriend who is a gentleman. And they want to be a boyfriend’s faithful girlfriend. And they do not want sex at all,” said the big sister.
Deep inside his heart, this classy snazzy girl now born again suddenly seemed to be a good thing to go after in his life. Se Marier was now nothing at all of what most distressed him about the carnal worldliness of high school life. This new convert had nothing to do with corruption. And the bane of Mental now seemed like maybe an opportunity for happy companionship. Never mind what might come from Psychology of this. With Se Marier as Christian girlfriend, maybe Mental might lose all of its former stigma in his mind. And maybe Psychology might lose its punch. In losing his wars, now it looked like he could find his happiness with this Christian classy snazzy girl at his side in life. Truly now he had no more shame in his mad crush for Miss Clark. In fact he felt like showing her off now as his own special girlfriend of God.
Then the big sister said, “You know, Flanders, my little sister has a thing for guys with overbites.”
He had an overbite all of his life and especially yet. “A thing for buck teeth?” he asked with bated breath. “A good thing or a bad thing?”
“Oh, a great thing,” said the big sister.
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“Does she tell you if there is any boy whom she would like to go out with the most?” asked Flanders with brave new hopes.
In subtle allusion the big sister said, “Se Marier told me that she wants to be the one girl of Pulaski High School who conquers the most unconquerable boy of Pulaski High School.”
A telltale silence came from the big sister after having said this.
And Flanders Nickels, said, “That’s I. Isn’t it?”
“Yes. She wants to be the girlfriend of the one guy who hates girls the most,” said the big sister.
“This guy whom you are talking about does not hate Se Marier. This guy likes Se Marier the most of all the school. This guy has a mad crush for her. And he wants her to become his. And he wants to become hers,” declared Flanders without reservation. “Would she have him?
“Only if he would have her,” said the big sister.
Behold, he could date his beautiful classy snazzy girl now.
“Go after my sister, Flanders,” said the big sister. “She has been liking you a lot her whole junior year here. And she is getting tired of waiting.”
“I will keep a classy snazzy girl waiting for me no longer.” he promised.
It was May that day that he had found out about Se Marier’s crush on him. And he came up to her in the hall by her locker the very next day. He asked her, “Do you still like my different colored socks, Se Marier?” He was not sure how to go ahead and ask the big question right away.
And she said, “I do, Flanders. I do.”
“I like your vest the most of you,” he said, finding courage in her attentions to him.
“Thank you, Flanders,” she said. “Mom made it for me.”
Comfortable with this extra special girl so quickly he asked, “Would you like to go out with me, Se Marier?”
She said, “Yes!” And she nodded her head in most avid assent. “I was waiting for you to ask
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me that all year, Flanders.”
“Here I am, asking a beautiful girl out on a date,” he said to himself and to her.
“Where would you like to take me?” she asked.
“I never stopped to think about that,” he said. He laughed, and she laughed with him.
“How about your place?” she asked.
“I could show you off to Mom and Dad, Se Marier,” he said.
“I would love to be showed off,” she said. “I would be glad to meet your parents.”
“This is becoming the happiest day of my life,” he said. “And it looks like I will have many more happy days after this.”
“I never knew that you felt that way about me, Flanders,” said the classy snazzy girl.
“I have had a crush on you all this senior year of mine as you have had for me,” he said.
“I am honored,” she said. Then she asked, “Shall we say tonight? My dad can drive me to your place in his pickup truck, and he can come back and bring me back home when we are done.”
“Se Marier, you are the prettiest girl of all the high school,” he told her.
“And you are the cutest guy in all the high school for me, Flanders,” said Miss Clark.
“Shall we pick a time for our date tonight, Se Marier?” he asked.
“I forgot to ask that,” she said. She laughed, and he laughed with her.
“How about eight o-clock tonight?” he asked.
“I’ll be there,” she said. Then she said, “God bless you, cute Flanders.”
And he said back to her words he had never said before, “And God bless you, too, Se Marier.”
Just then the bell rang, ending the school day. “Oh, I got to catch my bus, Flanders,” she said.
“And I’ve got to catch my bus, also,” said Flanders. And they parted for the day till they came back together this evening.
And for the first time in his high school life, his ride home on the school bus was a happy ride.
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It was time now for him. The little wind-up clock he had in front of him said almost eight o’clock. He was in Mom and Dad’s nice homey back porch waiting for the girl to come. It was cozy in here with the summer air going through the screens and with the red brick pattern linoleum floor and with the nice table lamps and with the furniture. It was cozy out there in the summer air with the pleasant dark of night and its warmth. He was sitting on the sofa, and the clock read eight o’clock. Just then a brightness shone upon the back yard from the driveway from the front. These were from headlights of a vehicle having turned off of Kunesh West Road and into the driveway. Then the lights turned to his left and shone upon the little shed behind the house. And he saw the headlights at an angle from this back porch straight out back. It was a pickup truck. And a young woman came out, said, “Thanks, Dad,” and also, “I’ll call you when I’m ready.” And the truck backed out and left. And the young woman came up the porch steps to the porch where Flanders was sitting. And now he jumped to his feet. “Se Marier, is that really you?” he asked. She was right in front of this porch screen door. Of course it were she.
And she said, “It is I here, if it is you there.”
Both laughed, and he said, “Come on in. Make yourself at home. And let’s talk together.”
And Se Marier Catherine Clark came in and joined him on the porch, both standing there, excited and anticipatory. “Ah, my classy snazzy girl dressed a little differently from the day I first saw you, Se Marier,” he said in approval. This time, instead of a solid blue shirt, she had on a solid purple shirt just like it. Her eye-catching vest and blue jeans and sneakers were the same.
“Is that a good thing, Flanders?” asked Miss Clark.
“It is most surely, Se Marier,” he said. Then he said, “Now I can see that you are no taller than I am,”
“I am five feet eight,” she said.
“So am I,” he said. “I always saw you as six feet tall.”
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“Your lady of Pulaski High School must have seemed larger than life to you,” said Se Marier
Clark.
Thrilled with such feminine pulchritude standing with him in this back porch of his house, Flanders said, “Come on in all the way to the house, Se Marier. My parents are eager to see what kind of girl that I have found who would have me.”
And Flanders Nickels brought his first girlfriend into Mom and Dad’s house. They left the porch and came into the dining room together. There stood his parents, in all faithful approval and all due welcome and all eager curiosity.
“Mom, Dad, I would like you to meet Se Marier.” he said. “Se Marier, this is my Mom and Dad.”
Mom said, “Glad to meet you, Se Marier. My son never told me that he liked a girl.”
And Dad said, “It is good to meet a girl who likes Flanders. I can see in you the kind of girl that can make my son happy. I’m glad to meet you.”
“I’m happy to meet you two, too, Mr. and Mrs. Nickels,” said Miss Se Marier Clark. “I feel so welcome all at once even though we have just met each other right now.”
Mom said, “I never thought to see the day where Flanders would find himself a girl. And I am glad that the girl is you, Se Marier.”
And Dad said, “I trust you completely as Flanders’s girlfriend. And I trust him completely as your boyfriend.”
“Why, thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Nickels,” said the classy snazzy girl here in the dining room.
And Flanders asked, “Well, Se Marier. Shall we get started and get to talking with each other and finding out about each other?”
“Here in the dining room?” she asked.
“A perfect place like this would be great,” said Flanders Nickels.
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And Flanders’s parents left the dining room and went into the living room. They honored their son’s request for privacy with this young lady from school. And Flanders and Miss Clark sat down across from each other at the dining room table. She took out a little book from her purse and put it down upon the big table.
“It’s my pocket New Testament,” she said.
“I heard that you got born again just a few days ago, Se Marier,” he said.
“Yep. Born again by the blood of the Lamb, Flanders,” she spoke her good new faith.
“What did you do to get born again like you did?” asked Flanders.
“I prayed and asked God to save me,” said the classy snazzy girl.
“It sounds easy,” said Flanders.
“Oh, but the Devil tries to make it hard,” she said.
“I’ve never gone and done that before,” he said.
“It was the greatest decision that I ever made, Flanders,” she said.
“Tell me everything about how you became one of those Christians,” he said to her.
“I’d be very glad to tell you, Flanders,” said Miss Clark. And she told Flanders the testimony of her salvation of just a few days ago: “It all started with a terrible accident in the family. Our family dog, whom I most loved of all of us in the family got hit by a car in a hit-and-run accident. I saw it happen. And I saw the car speed away. And I saw my dear dog die there on the road. Her name was ‘Shep,’ and she was a Border Collie, and she was twelve years old, and we had her in the family for almost all of her years.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Se Marier,” he said.
“Do you like dogs, too, Flanders?” asked the classy, snazzy girl.
And he quickly said a most emphatic, “I love dogs, Se Marier!”
“So do I, Flanders,” said Se Marier.
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“Poor Shep,” said Flanders.
“For myself, Flanders, I made it all ‘poor me,’” said the new convert in Christ.
“I don’t blame you,” said Flanders.
“Do blame me,” said Se Marier. “I put on a pity-party show. And I got all sulky. And I refused to forget Shep and to go on from there.”
“A girl ought to love her dog,” said Flanders.
“Flanders,” said Se Marier. “This thing I had for Shep kept going for over a whole year after that day I lost her.”
“Do you mean that you lost Shep a year ago, and you found Christ just a few days ago?” asked Flanders.
“And all that time in between I gave myself to love only her and to love no one else,” said Miss Clark.
“I know a little something about that in my own life,” he dared to confess a deep dark secret no one would ever know about himself.
Se Marier then continued her story of her salvation: “What I began to do with my beloved Shep before too long came to become false idolatry, Flanders. All of my memories and grief and constant focus on her was more important to me that Jesus. I was lost. Lost people find everything more important than Jesus. That’s why they die in their sins and go to Hell. I knew that Shep was dead and was no more anywhere. Christians say that when animals die, unlike people, they simply return to the dust from where they had come. Animals, having no souls, when they pass away, they are all gone completely. There are no dogs down here who go to Heaven. There are no dogs down here who go to Hell. And, I, being an unsaved girl in mourning, was making Shep more important to myself than the Creator Who had created Shep.” She paused, took a breath and let it out, and said, “Then a Baptist Pastor told me something that was a wake-up call for me about my own soul, Flanders.”
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“What did he tell you, Se Marier?” asked Flanders.
“He told me, ‘Young lady, Shep never died for your sins,’” said the classy, snazzy girl.
“I never heard of such a thing to say to a girl who lost her dog,” said Flanders. “I loved a dog just as much in my younger days, and nobody ever said such a thing to me.”
“What I needed to know as a girl who made a false god out of a dog who passed away was that Jesus died for my sins,” said Se Marier Clark.
“But if the dog be God,” said Flanders most subtly.
“Shep was not God,” said Se Marier in rebuke at Flanders in his mysterious disclosures. “Any woman who worships the creature more than she does the Creator is not going to Heaven.”
“I daresay, Se Marier, that I know God more personally than you do. Are you saying that Jesus is God?” he asked.
“Jesus is God,” she said. “And only a person who has a personal relationship with Jesus as Saviour can truly claim that he knows the true God.”
“Really, Se Marier?” he asked. “Really?”
“And Jesus died on the cross and rose again the third day,” said the classy snazzy girl. “No dog of mine or any other dog anywhere could do that. Dogs are mortal, and Jesus is immortal.”
“Really, Se Marier?” he asked. “Really?”
“And I am going to Heaven, because I am a born-again believer in Christ,” she said. “Christ is the reason for the glories of Heaven. Jesus’s Presence in His Self is what makes Heaven the Paradise that it is. Jesus rules over all on His throne in Heaven.”
“Really, Se Marier?” he asked. “Really?”
“Christ waits for His Christians to come home to Heaven to be with Him,” said Miss Clark.
“I pity the lost person who believes that his long-lost dog is waiting for him to come home to Heaven to be with him. Such a person will split Hell wide open.”
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More offended now about this Jesus than any previous offense he had found in his eighteen years of life and vexed beyond any vexations of Mental and more fiery vengeful than any vengeance against Psychology, Flanders Nickels rebuked this girl with a seven-word oath: “How dare you say that about Pal?!”
Nobody could say anything bad about his late Collie dog.
And, in discernment, the classy snazzy girl said, “You want me to leave now. Don’t you, Flanders?” He said nothing. She knew that to be a,”Yes.” And she said no more. And Se Marier left his life. She did not know what she had said that had brought up this stranger dog named “Pal.” She did not know who this Pal was. She knew that he right now had a German Shepherd named, “Blitzen.”
And he did not worship this Blitzen. Did he maybe worship this Pal? If he did do that, his Pal surely had a much more profound impact in his life than even Shep had in hers. He even spoke of Pal as a deity. Shep was never a deity to her. Woe unto Flanders Nickels for his rebellion against the Saviour.
He was doomed until he found Christ. He needed the true God in his heart to get to the true Heaven. Her dad came to pick her up and drive her home. She was sorrowful for this sudden breaking up that this cute guy of high school had done with her. And the first thing she did when she came home from the date was to fall upon her knees beside her bed and pray for the salvation of Flanders’s soul.
Meanwhile, at this same time in Flanders’s head, Psychology yet continued tormenting him. Mental was not the problem now. He was done with the girl. Any other girls right now were less than the classy snazzy girl. He did not like girls anymore now that his girl had so put down most beloved of all his Pal. If there were no more girls, there was no more Mental. And he sighed and waxed thankful that Mental had died even though he had just shared a date with a girl, which was once foreseen as that most daunting of defeats.
Throughout this senior year to date, late in May now, he had seen Psychology grow from 150 hits per day to 200 hits per day to 250 hits per day. But this very next day at school, the last day of
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the school year, Flanders, trying to forget Se Marier with Se Marier in his classes with him, found Psychology attaining for its first time 300 hits against him that day. Then another summer vacation lay ahead for him. And, remembering how Psychology steadily waned in his days without school in the last summer vacation, he anticipated the same for this summer vacation. The rest would feel very good to him. But the summer vacation did not go for him as he had expected. Nay, Psychology maintained its grip on his mind, and it did not dissipate this time all this summer. And Se Marier continued being the “greatest servant of Psychology.” even though he never saw her for all three months straight of this summer off from school. This year he was going to go to college. And he prayed to his “God” in fears of what college dorm life would do to him with his Psychology. And Psychology was “bigger than God.”
Then the day before his big move to college came. Tomorrow he would no longer be living at home. He would be a freshman at St. Norbert College. And Se Marier would be a senior yet at Pulaski High School. He would no longer see his classy snazzy girl in his schooldays. He was still mad at her, but she was a most singular woman. His dark days, his life racked with Psychology, were now on their five hundred seventy-fifth day. And it was now August 30, 1980. And he wanted to be with “his blue jean girl” once again before this once again were too late.
He humbled himself on the phone to her, said, “I’m sorry,” and asked, “Would you forgive me?”
And she came back to him with the goodness inside as of the Lord Himself. He then asked her out, saying, “Could we celebrate a rendezvous?”
And she said, “Only if you let me talk about Jesus.”
He had not paused to think about her relationship with her God that so differed from his relationship with his “God,” when he had earlier been contemplating so great reconciliation. But that was all right now. She was a beautiful woman. And her preaching would be okay with him, though it would tempt him to be a little unfaithful to Pal. And he answered her requirement with a “Yes, Se
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Marier. You can tell me all you want about Christ.”
And she came over on a most happy rendezvous with a man who still loved an old Collie dog.
It was night again. And they got together on the sofa in the nice lights of the back porch. And it was still August 30, 1980. She was this special night dressed in that third “classy snazzy girl outfit” just for him. This one included a long sleeved white cotton shirt and a leather vest in complementing her blue jeans and her canvas sneakers. And she had a King James Bible on her lap. An initial moment of muteness came upon the two. Flanders hesitated and did not ask, “Would you tell me about Jesus?” But the classy snazzy girl went ahead and broke the silence, asking him, “Would you tell me a little about Pal, Flanders?”
And that bonded Flanders and Se Marier with unity. He suddenly wanted to tell his classy snazzy girl all about Pal with out any more hints or secret riddles. She, however, wanted to find out all about this “dog god” who kept him from seeking the true Saviour, in hopes of helping him find the same good God of salvation that she had found not too many months ago.
And he began to tell his story, “Se Marier, one day, early in my freshman year, something happened that made my life never the same again. It was November 29, 1976. That was the day that I lost Pal out of my life. I had her in my life for over four years. I remember now in life before Pal how I had told Mom that I wished someday to have a gazing globe and a pet Collie. I never got the gazing globe; but that’s okay. But I got the Collie; and I fell in love. Well that one bad day in Kunesh, I got off of the school bus after school, and I did not see my Collie dog Pal waiting for me in the yard.” He sighed and said, “To make a long story short, I never saw Pal again. Nobody knew what happened to her. I assumed the worst, that maybe she were killed. She could have been stolen by a bad person in a car. Maybe she on her own went back up north where we had first taken her into the family; she could hunt and take care of herself with her wily self-sufficient ways up there. Those were old days even before my foes of Mental and Psychology, as I call them, were around. And I fell upon grieving for a
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beautiful middle-aged female Collie dog.”
“I know how you feel,” said the classy snazzy girl. “I lost and mourned over a Border Collie dog, and my life was changed for ever.” He knew that she regarded her life of grieving to be a tragedy with a happy ending—becoming one of those born-again believers in the end.
“Then tenth grade came upon me, Se Marier, and suddenly I found a first pretty girl. It was Lindsay Wagner—TV’s Bionic Woman—in a picture in a magazine for English 10 class. And what I call “Mental” was born into my life. I did not feel right about my new life of liking girls. So I decided that I would fight it hard and take it down and get it out of my life for ever. And I declared war against Mental. And this new fondness was a hardship that would soon become a daily battle. And also in my sophomore year as this new war was starting, I also started a second war that I needed to fight. This battle was to try to find out what had become of Pal who was suddenly not there for me anymore a year ago. Tenth grade was a hard year for me. And my life was unhappy. As I can tell, Se Marier, looking back, my fighting days against Mental in tenth grade were just the beginning. And my fighting days in my search for Pal were ineffectual and noncommittal and without diligence or plan. But these two wars taught me that Pal was more than just a dog. I began to use Pal as a weapon against Mental. I began to make the pure thoughts of what Pal was to me as a Collie and to attack my thoughts of what Lindsay and all of the other pretty girls were to me with them. Pal the long-lost Collie became almost mythical now as the opponent to women to me. And already Pal was the most important thing to me here in my life then as the sole object of my war to find her again. Pal was the good guy in both of my wars in tenth grade. How great and how big and how powerful was my old Pal. She had to be God Himself!” said Flanders Nickels.
“Ouch, Flanders,” said the Christian woman.
“Here me out,” said Flanders, sure and not offended. “That discovery I had made in eleventh grade the next year. It was January 1979. I found out about my old Collie’s deity. I called her by two
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new titles: the first of these titles I gave her was ‘The Administrator,’ because she began to administer the things in my life now; and the second of these titles I gave her was ‘1,’ because she was the new number one in my life. That revelation I came upon in January 1979 I called ‘the birth of the Administrator.’ I was in love with Pal all over again. And from that day forward big things began to come into my life. She made me happy, herself being God in my life.”
“Ow, Flanders,” said Se Marier again in her stand for her personal Saviour.
“Tell me what you think now, Se Marier, now that I told you all about my great Pal,” said Flanders.
“It sounds to me like you took a Collie dog, and you went ahead and glorified her and resurrected her and deified her, Flanders,” said Se Marier.
“Well,” he said. “You don’t believe in my God. And I don’t believe in your God.”
“My God made your Pal, Flanders,” said the Christian gal. “My Jesus is the Creator and the Maker and the Most Wise Designer of all life.”
“What makes you so sure that I am all wrong about Pal?” he asked.
“Well, for starters, Flanders, before Pal became God, Who then was God?” she asked. “And for another thing, if Pal were God, why have you never seen nor heard from her yet after she had disappeared years before? And if she were God, why did she let something happen to her that took her away from you if you and she loved each other so very much?”
“You’re asking very hard questions that I have never asked myself, Se Marier,” he said, his faith in his Administrator being challenged for his very first time.
“Your ‘1,’ as you call her, is not an immortal Collie, Flanders,” said the Christian woman. “She is very mortal, and if she is not truly dead by now, she will truly be dead not too many years from now.”
“She will never die, Se Marier,” he declared without all traditional faith now in his tone.
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She pondered how to begin leading him to Christ. And after some thought, she asked, “Flanders, what is the worst thing that ever happened in your life?”
“Indeed the day that Psychology came into my life,” he said.
“What is this Psychology?” she asked.
“It is disturbing thoughts about the opposite sex,” he said in uncomfortable confidance.
“Like psychological thoughts about us girls?” she asked.
He nodded in silent confession, not at all happy about telling this to the classy snazzy girl.
“Do you still have it?” she asked.
“That which I call ‘Psychology?’” he asked.
“Uh huh,” she said.
“It started out like a neurosis; now it is more like a psychosis, Se Marier,” he said in relief that she cared about him enough to ask him.
“So, Flanders, when did this Administrator come into your life?” she asked.
“January 1979,” he said.
“And when did this Psychology come into your life?” she asked.
“February 1979,” he said.
“One month later,” she said. “I think that I see something here.”
“What do you see, Se Marier?” he asked.
“What I see is this, Flanders,” she said. “In January 1979 you fell in love with a beautiful Collie God—a false god and a false idol—and in February 1979 you became afflicted with what sounds to me to be schizophrenia all about women.”
He said what she had just previously said, “One month later.”
She continued, “I believe that you have a demon inside of you, Flanders.”
“I’m possessed?” he asked, submitting himself now to her Christian wisdom.
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“You have gotten yourself into such dark occult things with this Pal since she left you that the Devil Himself has come into you and has messed up your mind with this intruder which you call ‘Psychology.’ Pal became God. You fell utmost hard into false idolatry. Behind every false idol is a demon. And not too long later a demon came inside of you and is there inside you yet today,” said the wise Christian woman.
“Are you saying that the Administrator is the one who gave me my Psychology?” he asked. “I thought that she was letting me use her to fight Psychology.”
“The Administrator is not God,” said Miss Clark.
“And you think that Psychology is really schizophrenia, Se Marier?” he asked.
“It sure sounds like it to me,” she said.
“How can you tell?” he asked.
“I read a book about schizophrenia as a child one day. It was horrible and it was terrible,” she said.
“I know, Se Marier. It is horrible and it is terrible,” he said.
“I can help, if you wish me to, Flanders,” said the classy snazzy girl.
“Do we have to go through an exorcism, Se Marier?” he asked.
“I don’t know how to do that,” she said. “But I do know how I can lead a lost man to salvation. That’s better.”
“I think now that that is what I want,” he said. Then he asked, “But what about my problem?”
“Your biggest problem right now is your unsaved soul,” she said. “First we need to get your soul right with Jesus. Then we can take care of other things like schizophrenia and the demon and your bad thoughts.”
“I agree, Se Marier,” he said. “First things first. I need to make it for myself that I can go to Heaven and not to Hell in my life to come. Jesus can do it for me. Anything else God can take care of
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for me later.”
“Be of good courage and fear not, Flanders. If you do become born-again you will not have to worry about any exorcism per se,” said the classy snazzy girl. “Every person who gets born again immediately has the Holy Spirit of God coming into him to dwell within him. And when the Holy Spirit comes into a man, if he has an evil spirit inside of him already the Holy Spirit will kick him right out of him. There is no room for a Christian for both a demon and the Holy Ghost indwelling him at the same time. And the Holy Ghost is more powerful that the Devil and his demons.
“That’s good to hear, Se Marier,” he said. “Let’s go and get myself saved.”
“First you must in your heart repent of all that Pal means to you past and present and future,” she said.
“I think that I am ready to do that now that I know that I was all wrong about her, Se Marier,” he said.
“God promises to help you do that as soon as you pray to Him,” said Miss Clark.
“I could use help from the real God this time,” he said.
“And also you must confess that the Lord Jesus is the one true God and Saviour,” she said.
“I was more wrong about Jesus than I was about Pal,” he said. “I can now say that Jesus is God.”
“Flanders, would you now like to pray with your classy snazzy girl and become saved from your sins just like she did?” asked Se Marier Clark.
“I never prayed like you pray, Se Marier,” he said. “But I would like to give it a try.”
“I will say the sinners’ prayer line-by-line, and you can repeat after me after each line. Mean the prayer with your heart and say it with your tongue and humble yourself before God and trust in Him alone and only believe,” she said. “And when our prayer spoken by you is done, you will be a born-again believer just like me,” said the classy snazzy girl.
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“I’m ready, Se Marier,” he said. “I’m ready, Lord.”
And this following were the words of the sinners’ prayer that the classy snazzy girl led Flanders Nickels through unto so very great salvation: “Dear Father in Heaven Above: I am a sinner who brought bad things upon myself. I was wrong about girls. I was wrong about schizophrenia. I was wrong about the Collie dog. And I was the most wrong about the Saviour of the world. I ask You to clean up my life now. I ask You to forgive me for all of my sins. And I ask You to help me to repent of the Administrator. I believe and confess that Jesus the Lord shed His blood on the cross for me and for what I did in my life, and that that same Christ died for me to rescue me from my sins. I believe also that this same God arose from the dead on the third day on Earth’s first Easter and is a living God today. I ask You to give me everlasting life and to become my own personal Saviour, O Good Lord.
Only You can keep me out of Hell. And only You can prepare a place for me in Heaven. Thank You, Jesus. Jesus saves! In Your name I pray. Amen.”
The prayer for salvation was ended. Soul-winner and won soul looked up now from this sofa in this cozy back porch of nighttime.
“Well, Flanders. How does it feel to be a Christian now?” she asked.
“I seem to no longer feel Psychology,” he said. “I haven’t felt like this for what seems a lifetime.”
“It’s all gone. Isn’t it?” asked the classy, snazzy girl.
“Yeah, Se Marier. God has killed Psychology,” he said.
“What else do you see that is different for you?” asked Miss Clark.
“I have Jesus as my personal Saviour now,” he said. “That part really is the most important part of all that I needed in life.”
“You have been converted from the kingdom of darkness unto the kingdom of light, Flanders,” said the classy snazzy girl about his great conversion from being a child of the Devil to being a child of
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the Lord.
“I am no longer going to Hell to burn in fire. Now I am going to Heaven to rejoice with Jesus.”
he said the eternal aspect of becoming born again.
“But what do you think about ‘1?’” she asked about his feelings for that “immortal Collie.”
“I have fallen completely out of love for her,” he said. “And I shall never love her again for any moment for the rest of my life.”
“So great salvation has come upon you, Flanders Nickels,” she said.
”It has. It has, Se Marier,” he said.
“Could I become your classy snazzy girlfriend, Flanders?” she asked him.
“I would like that very much, Se Marier,” he said.
“Now that we are both born again, I could be your very own classy snazzy girlfriend-in-Christ,” said Se Marier.
“My classy snazzy girlfriend-in-the-Lord, Se Marier Clark,” he said. “I would like that even more so.”
“Shall we arrange for a third date together in our lives, Flanders?” she asked.
“We could call it ‘a rendezvous to a rendezvous,’” he said.
“Where shall we get together for that?” she said.
“How about in the dog pen?” he asked.
“Your good German Shepherd ‘Blitzen.’” sang out Miss Clark in glee.
“It would be a most wonderful date with me to bring you and Blitz together into my life like that,” he said.
“Your real Blitz is of God,” said the classy snazzy girl.
“And he’s handsome,” said Flanders.
“Like you, Flanders,” said Miss Clark.
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“Thank you for saying that, Se Marier,” he said. “You’re pretty.”
“Like your Lindsay,” she said.
“Only prettier,” he said. She beamed in praise.
The day came for the third date. And Se Marier and Flanders and Blitz were together in the dog pen out back. The first thing that the German Shepherd did was to put his nose close to her blue jean zipper. “Yes. I’m a girl, Blitz,” said Se Marier Clark.
“I never brought a girl home to show off to Blitz,” said Flanders. “This is even more exciting than when I got to show you off to Mom and Dad.”
“I think he likes me, Flanders,” said the classy snazzy girl.
Standing there before her, the German Shepherd looked up at her with keen attention. “I think that he knows that you are my girlfriend, Se Marier,” said Flanders. “He never met a person who was a girlfriend before.”
“I love you, Blitzen,” said Miss Clark, and she leaned down and kissed him on his kingly head.
And he replied with a kiss on her cheek. “I am your girlfriend, Flanders,” she said to him. “And I am Blitzen’s friend who is a girl.”
The fond German Shepherd gave forth affection in an earnest groaning. “Se Marier, you have found yourself a most affectionate dog friend,” said Flanders.
And the classy snazzy girl threw her arms around Blitz’s neck and gave him a big hug where he stood. Then Flanders said, “Blitz, shake hands.”
And Blitz proffered his right paw up at Se Marier. And Se Marier accepted his paw in her right hand. And she shook hands with the handsome big dog. “He’s amazing, Flanders,” she said. “Blitz, you’re amazing.” Then he cocked his canine head to the side at her and gave forth a brown-eyed look and a single bark. “Blitz, you’re definitely the right dog for my boyfriend.” said Miss Clark.
Then she looked upon the cement foundation of this dog pen in a look of discovery. “Why,
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Flanders, this dog pen…I have never seen a dog pen so clean as this one before. It looks like brand new,” she said to him.
“It is an old dog pen. I cleaned it up, because I knew that you were coming,” he told her.
“Sweeping cement with a broom is hard work,” she said.
“I did it for you and for Blitz the other day,” he said to her.
“God certainly brought the right man into my life, boyfriend,” said Miss Se Marier Clark.
“I want to treat my right woman from God good,” said Flanders.
Comfortable with man and dog, the classy snazzy girl sat down on the cement in the middle of the dog pen. Flanders sat down to her right. Blitzen sat down to her left. Flanders said, “I began to read the Holy Bible yesterday, Se Marier,” he said. “And I found a section of verses all about myself before and after you led me to Christ.”
“Where was it?” she asked.
“I can’t remember,” he said. “But it was definitely about demons. The Bible verses were talking about an unclean spirit.”
“An unclean spirit and a demon are one and the same,” she said. “I think that I know which verses you are talking about. It is Luke 11:24-26, I believe.”
“If you read that to me, I can tell if that is what I read the other day,” he said.
And Se Marier searched the Scriptures, found the passage, and read it to him, “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”
“Yes! That’s the one!” he said. “If it weren’t for Christ, even if I were exorcised of the one false dog god, seven others just like her and worse would end up coming into me.”
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“And there is a parallel such passage of Bible verses in Matthew 12:43-45,” she said.
“Could you read that for me, Se Marier?” he asked.
“Would you like to read it, Flanders?” she asked.
“That would be even better,” he said. She searched the Scriptures, found it, and showed him. And he read this threesome of verses out loud from her open King James Bible: “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.”
“The Saviour has kept you from having seven worse Pals come into you when you needed the one Pal to get out of you, Flanders,” said the Christian girl.
“I have swept my German Shepherd’s pen, Se Marier,” he said in clever allusion to the Bible passages about the swept house awaiting the demon.
“But your Blitz is no Pal,” she said to him in praise to master and pet.
Then contented Blitz lay down upon his belly next to the girl, and he put the underside of his chin upon her sneakers of her feet where she sat, and he closed his eyes to sleep.
“Why, Flanders, he’s on my feet, and I can’t get up without disturbing him right now,” said the classy snazzy girl. “What should I do?”
“Girlfriend-in-Christ,” teased Flanders Nickels, “it looks like you will just have to stay here a while with your new boyfriend.”
Resigning herself to Blitz’s comforts, the classy snazzy girl said, “If I have to stay here with you, Boyfriend, then that means that you have to stay here with me, also.”
“The classy snazzy girl is stuck here with a man and his dog,” said Flanders.
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And Miss Se Marier Catherine Clark said back to him, “That also means that a man and his dog are stuck with the classy snazzy girl.”
Boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-the-Lord laughed together. And the German Shepherd dog fell asleep on her feet where she sat. And they fellow shipped in the Lord as they sat upon the cement of Blitz’s dog pen until he woke up a few hours later.
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