Delmar: Maryland’s Cheapest Reeducation Camp

I’ve written before about how local the heroin addict-cum-preacher exhorted a room full of Delmartians to shout AMEN at a town meeting. Religious mania (which is second only to unrestricted development in our podunk burg) is so rampant here that we have police protection for itinerant preachers. If you’re a stranger preaching fire and brimstone the town is yours for the asking.

The most galling of the traveling preachers began their Delmar mission just over the Maryland state line a few years ago, not long after the aforementioned heroin addict’s friends joined the town council. A developer gave the preachers permission to use the land to convert whatever heathens Delmar had left. One expects he’s taking a tax credit for the “rent donation.”

The preachers have two sets of vehicles. One is a massive, tan, and hunter-green RV with slogans and the ministry’s phone number. The other is a combo; a small refrigerated box truck pulling a “baptism facility” in a converted car trailer.

I won’t let zealots hold me underwater until my soul’s clean, so I haven’t seen the inside, but I imagine there’s one of those lap pool treadmills or a galvanized wash tub within. Hell, maybe it’s just a couple of super soakers in the shape of a cross. How you baptize passersby in a highway trailer is between you and your god. The point is, it’s a mobile baptism operation with a metric fuck-ton of tax-free money behind it.

Early on, there were rumors that, bullhorn in hand, the men would spew hellfire at wide-eyed, car-seat-restrained children for the duration of a red light. I have not seen this happen. I’ve only seen the distracted “preacher” playing on his phone before the trailer while a recorded sermon blared.

The less pushback they got from the town early on, the louder and more aggressive they became. They preached and played their pre-recorded message on Thursday; everyone in town knew it.

My daughter, a mere 500 yards from the highway intersection, complained that the screaming would sometimes wake her napping children. In my backyard, a bare two miles away, I only could make out the occasional word. Still, it was a vile distraction compared to the evening hum of the local racetrack or the occasional Friday night football drum line.

I was freelancing for a local news outlet and called the town to see what was going on and had what would be my final conversation with the then-town manager. The cronies in charge fomented outrage over her salary during the election, so everyone knew her clock was ticking.

One of their early orders of business was to replace her with a patrician-looking man who was under investigation for (and would soon be convicted of) embezzling from the last town he managed.

The town manager wasn’t her normal, friendly self. She was tense, as if her phone had been ringing off the hook all day with noise complaints. Everyone in hearing distance had had enough. She said the new mayor had ordered the chief of police to go train the preachers on how to use their equipment within the confines of the law.

In Maryland, it’s illegal to have your car speakers loud enough to be heard 50 feet away. In Delmar, though, if you park a car and crank god stuff out of it, the law no longer applies. Still, the training worked. My unfortunate daughter still endures them, but I never heard another broadcast until early this summer.

Spoilers

It wasn’t just that it was a beautiful day. It was a beautiful day, and I was going to work outside. A story already was crystalizing in my head as I grabbed my notebook and a cup of coffee and headed out to have a solid afternoon of writing. The next five minutes played out like a poorly written comedy.

Me, fussing with my pens and my journal, setting the coffee cup in just the right place, almost ceremonially twisting the pen open and putting my head to the page as the sound JESUS reverberated through my backyard.

I’ll admit to feeling attacked and thwarted all at once. I called the police non-emergency, exchanged pleasantries, and gave my address, which is about two blocks from the police station.

“That guy in the mobile baptism truck is at it again,” I told the woman who answered.

“You can hear them?”

“Open your window,” I told her. “You can hear them.”

“Well, we’re not taking complaints about them anymore.”

I tried to let what she said force its way into my brain, but couldn’t make it stick. Once I explained what I thought she said back to her, the dispatcher clarified. People had been calling all day (again) but the town fathers decreed the preachers were within their rights. They instructed the dispatcher and police officers to tell residents to raise the issue at a town meeting, but not to molest the preachers for violating Maryland law.

As a writer, I’m pro freedom of speech, so I asked to speak with an officer to confirm the stakes.

The officer reiterated his orders and directed me to the town council. Then, I said this:

“I’m not going to talk to the mayor and council. I just need your name for when I exercise my rights as a resident, and I wanted you to have the heads up.”

I live fewer than 200 yards from every Little League and softball field in town. I explained that, as long as I was within my rights, I’d share my religious views with the kids, possibly my views on Santa Claus. If, for some reason, anti-free speech advocates called to complain, say, during a national girls softball tournament, I wanted a name to drop on the off chance the police showed up. I told him I fully expected complaints to be directed toward the mayor and council, but I wanted to be safe should the police ask me to turn it down or knock it off.

More than that, I wanted confirmation that the boobs my neighbors elected understood all the implications of a townwide unrestricted free speech policy. They’re not bright people and clearly have a late-night AM radio understanding of civics.

A Fantasy

I imagined lugging my PA gear out into the backyard, lighting up a cigar and waxing evangelical about how dumb it is to believe in god, warning the kids that they’re more likely to be raped by their youth minister than some smack addict on the street.

I meant it in the moment, and I mean it now. Kelly asked if I’d schedule my protest until she was out of town, or give her the heads up so she could be elsewhere, but she saw in my eyes I’d slipped beyond reason. In my mind, I gloated over all the days at the park I would ruin, all the uncomfortable questions I’d raise at future family dinners.

As it turns out, I’m a little too Jewish.

A Harsh Reality

I don’t have anything nice to say about living in Delmar, except that I have really great neighbors. They’re decent people, and I’ve known most of them for nearly 30 years. Their American flags are normal, their non-American flags are friendly and often seasonal (I’ve mentioned this before). They don’t deserve to live next to someone person who indulges in performative irrationality.

Unfortunately, they do, but I realized it would be rude to actually be that person. Worse, my neighbors probably would be cool about it, rational and evenhanded, making me feel all the worse for my petty revenge.

But I still feel it in my gut, that call to let anger give way to madness. I could go outside right now, (9:35 Friday, July 12, as I’m drafting), set up my speakers and say whatever comes into my dumb head for the next 25 minutes. It would be legal, and no one could use it as evidence to have me involuntarily committed. It would also be wrong, and a definite sign that I was on the verge of losing it.

There’s something broken in a society that thinks it’s acceptable to yell “Fags cause hurricanes” through a bullhorn, but not “There’s no Santa.”

It’s as if we’re happy they’re just screaming falsehoods rather than uncomfortable truths. No one ever stands on a corner shouting “love thy neighbor” over a bullhorn. Christian propagandists aren’t trying to enlighten, they’re trying to provoke.

I know from my experience with the aggressively religious that these are scared animals lashing out at a world where they can’t hide from change. They will (and have and do) kill to protect their fantasy. They need to feel persecuted to know they’re doing god’s work.

Performative Irrationality

“Performative Irrationality” is just my way of making “acting crazy” sound academic. Fanged and clawed mammals evolved a disposition against murder because their weaponized bodies made killing too easy. Weaponless humans had to expend an incredible amount of effort to kill their own, so our forbearers didn’t evolve the disposition against murder the way, say, wolves did.

I think of performative irrationality as the equivalent of snarling, a warning signal modern humans developed. What, practically, is a more dire way to ward people off than seeming on the verge of “going postal?” Implicit in street corner preaching is the possibility that they might move from fire and brimstone to arson without warning.

Preaching also attracts sexual predators and con artists, so it’s hard to tell whether the ones we got are nutballs or confidence men. I always assume the latter. After all, religion is the only industry where extortionists are above the law.

For instance, it’s illegal for me to say I will burn down your house if you don’t pay me, but it’s perfectly fine to say your house might burn down if you don’t give me money for god. Being religious (especially if you’re also persecuted by the godless) remains the best way to get money without work. Failed election attempts are probably a much bigger part of our economy than is sensible.

I believe the scent of political corruption attracts the street preachers like the ones holding Delmar hostage. They can detect civic apathy the way buzzards smell carrion. They’ll stay out there, demarcating the town as a cartoonish rural backwater, until the cash dries up. Delmar will continue to be a pit, run at the pleasure of felons, Jesus freaks, sketchy builders, and simpletons.

The only thing I can do is stand outside of this culture, throwing rocks and shouting into the void.