by Arthur’s two disappearances shadowed everyone in town. The first—his kidnapping to be sent to the de-punkification boot camp—resulted in him coming back a changed person, a change consistently played up by Pastor during service. Arthur was used as an example to excoriate parents for being too lenient with their children, letting them get away with too much, letting the Satanic specter of secularism creep into their lives.
When he came back, he gave all his D&D books to Mark, passing along the torch, relinquishing the crown of Dungeon Master, a weight Mark wasn’t sure he was ready to bear. Arthur wanted the game to continue, though, said it was important that Mark and his friends keep fighting for justice and standing up to the forces of evil. However, Arthur couldn’t be involved anymore because the game was part of the life he’d turned his back on. Or, as he described it to Nate nearly a year later at the graduation party preceding his second disappearance, the life that had been wrenched from him.
And the second disappearance only served to give Pastor more material to work with, an example to hold up of the children’s contempt for their parents, for the work that had been done, for the lives of righteousness the town offered. Whereas Arthur had been an example of what could be achieved by listening to Pastor’s advice, Arthur’s flight only became another opportunity to excoriate parental permissiveness and the insidious tendrils of secularism.
Even though Arthur was gone, removed twice from the town, his presence was still felt, was the body dragged out and shaken to justify the attacks on the music store, the radio station, the movie theater, the attacks that became the background noise of the town, preparing them to accept what came next.
