Mark Usery is a painter - of things, not pictures - and he has a painter's appreciation of wood, which is the surface on which he most often works. He has often taken old pieces of wood, worthless and chipped, and lovingly sanded and oiled them back to health. He lives on a dirt road in Jefferson County. His house is not fancy, but it is filled with throwaway things that he has restored - a bookcase, a chair, a coat rack, even a wooden stepladder that now sits in the living room as a decorative stand for plants.

Not long ago, he had a pew. It came from Graham Chapel at Washington University. It was taken out of the chapel a couple of years ago when the chapel was remodeled. The old pew was put in a storage room.

Usery is 52 years old. He is deeply religious. He attends the First Evangelical Free Church, which was recently in the news for hosting a conference in which speakers argued that gay people could become straight. Usery was raised in Jefferson County. He did not graduate from high school. He became a painter. He worked whenever he could. He generally made about $7 an hour. He had no benefits, and that was a problem because he suffered from depression. He lived at home with his parents.

In August 1987, he was at a paint store. A man in the store told him that Washington University was looking for a painter. Usery went to the university and was hired. He was suddenly making $11.50 an hour. He had benefits. He felt blessed.

He sometimes found old things in the garbage. Students threw things out, especially at the end of the school year. They might throw out chairs or end tables. Sometimes the university would remodel a building and the old stuff would get tossed. Usery took some of these things home and restored them.

In 1997, he had a severe bout of depression. He had electro-shock therapy..

When he was 45, he got married. His wife was a waitress and cleaned houses. She had four children. Like Usery, she was religious. Usery left his parents' home, and he and his wife got their own place. Her two youngest children lived with them.

Usery continued working and going to church. The children grew up. The youngest one had a child of her own but still lived at home. Then she made the decision to better herself. She enrolled in classes at Jefferson College this fall. The university paid her tuition. That was an unexpected blessing. After seven years of full-time employment, employees of the university are eligible for a tuition reimbursement program. A painter gets the same treatment as a professor.

In November, Usery heard that a plumber was fired. He was alleged to have stolen from the university. Years ago, a painter was fired. Usery had heard that he, too, was stealing. He was accused of writing fake job orders and using them to get paint, which he then took home and used for personal work. At any rate, a plumber was fired and the word went around in the facilities management department: If anybody is going to take anything home, he must first get a note.

Actually, that had always been a rule, but according to Usery, it had been followed less than faithfully. It was, as far as Usery was concerned, a measure intended to prevent theft, and no one had ever accused Usery of such a thing. In fact, back when the department had evaluations and five was the highest score, Usery got almost all fours - except for integrity and dependability. In those, he got fives.

Long before the plumber was fired, Usery had moved three old pews to the carpenter shop from the storage room where he had found them. He intended to restore them. On a Saturday in September, he decided to take one home. He urged another employee, who was new and still on probation, to take one, too. This second employee was unsure what he'd do with a pew. Fix it up and give it away. These are too nice to just rot, said Usery. So each of the men took a pew.

Late last month, somebody noticed that two of the pews that had been in the carpenter shop were missing. What happened to them? I took one, said Usery. He had to report to the facilities manager. Usery said he told the facilities manager what had happened. The manager told me he could not discuss the case because it is a personnel matter.

Usery said the manager told him this was a serious issue. Usery brought the pew back. He called his union, the Operating Engineers. He said the union representative told him he should not have confessed. I don't lie, Usery said he said. A union representative did not return my phone call.

On the 15th of March, Usery was fired for "removing University property from campus without authorization." The probationary employee was also fired.

I visited Usery at his home last week. His wife was gone, cleaning houses. Usery was watching his 2-year-old step-grandchild. He said that he and his wife were in the process of getting legal guardianship of the child. But now, of course, everything is unsettled. What will they do without his paycheck? What will they do without health insurance?

"I know I did something wrong, but I worked there for 18 years and never even had a reprimand," he said. "This seems like such a stiff punishment. I am not a thief.";

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