Street preacher

I hadn't seen King in a long time. He and his wife lived in a house down the street which was owned by a nonprofit. They had worked out a deal to buy it, but the nonprofit raised the price at the last minute and they moved.

I was catching him up on recent events in the neighborhood when one of the homeless guys we know walked by. 

"Hey, I have to apologize for that outburst the other day," King told him.

"Yeah, I've never seen you like that,"  Titus replied.

After Titus left, King told me the story: While he himself was not a religious man, he would attend church to please his wife. One of the preachers at his church invited his wife to lunch, but didn't tell King. Apparently the preacher had been doing this with several women in the church. King had previously noticed the preacher eyeing his wife from the pulpit, and had checked to see if he wasn't just imagining it by changing where they sat.

So the Sunday after the lunch invitation King went down to the church, strode up to the front, grabbed the preacher and hoisted him overhead. He then shook the man, threw him against the wall, and threw a forearm into his mouth which left him with a bloody lip and loose teeth.

I had to apologize for that, King said, I didn't mean to beat him up too bad; I just wanted to send a message. He then had the preacher confess to his transgression to the flock, whereupon the preacher said he had been about to tell everyone that he thought he would be leaving the church.

King went on to tell me he had caught other pastors and policemen over the years with prostitutes or doing drugs. 

He said he'd usually give them the chance to come clean with their parishioners, or in the case of the cops he would just turn them in.