Armageddon Crazy

In the end, she decided reluctantly to go. It was not that she had all that courage; it was more because she could not think of a sound alternative. She only had the identity of Cynthia Kline, clerical auxiliary, and no travel papers would allow her to get back into Canada or away to Europe. Her only alternatives were either to become a nameless fugitive without money or support, or to continue to go with this increasingly dubious program. In the end she took a deep breath and started undressing to take a shower. It felt like walking naked straight into the lion's mouth.

Arrival at the Garden did not do anything to allay the gnawing fears. The streams of people that were still milling outside looked crazy, and the VIP lounge resembled nothing more than an anteroom to hell. Even Longstreet was fazed by the concentration of top deacons. As they walked past security on the door and were checked off on the guest list, he muttered under his breath, "My God, the brass is out in force and looking for blood."

Cynthia silently prayed that the blood would not be hers.

Longstreet quickly recovered. "Let's smile nicely and slide into the fray."

Fortunately, the fray proved to be less intense than she had expected. After the initial round of circulation, she was able to take a glass of champagne from a waiter and find a vantage point from where she could watch the show and hardly be noticed.

Longstreet hissed at her. "Try not to get drunk two days in a row."

"I'll watch it."

She sipped her drink and concentrated on what was happening on the stage. All her life she had done her best to avoid TV preachers. Even back in the old days, they had filled her with a restful unease. It was not just the creepy smiles, the overblown histrionics, and the constant demands for money – the thing that angered her the most was their absolute certainty about everything. How did anyone have the gall to presume to be so right? She had to admit, however, that this guy Proverb had a lot more going for him. He was a throwback to the scenery-chewing Elmer Gantrys of the mid-twentieth century, and the special effects were like something out of an old-time rock-and-roll spectacular. Despite herself, she found that she was soon halfway caught up in his act.

After an orgy of multimedia hellfire, he was pouring liquid honey over the masses. Bliss blue poured onto the stage, and an invisible choir of country-and-western angels harmonized in wrap sound.

"The word is joy, my friends. The word is rapture. Do you all know the meaning of the word 'rapture'? Do you know the meaning of the word 'joy'? Joy, my friends, my brothers and my sisters, that's the feeling when you feel so good that you want to jump up and yell out loud, when you want to throw your arms up in the air and just haul off and holler out: Praise the Lord, I feel so good!"

The sound was juiced on the final shout so that it came out as if Proverb were hollering from the mountaintop. Cynthia had to admit that the presentation was slick. All over the floor of the auditorium, the more exuberant sections were leaping in the air and yelling the line right back to the spangled figure on the stage.

"Praise the Lord!"

"Praise the Lord, I feel so good!"

"Praise the Lord!"

The deacons in the VIP lounge were watching in stony silence. There was no conversation above the music and the crowd noise that was being relayed through the monitor speakers. The choir was getting louder. Proverb raised a hand, and the faithful fell silent,

"I'll say it again." His delivery became stylized and mythmic. "Joy-a is when you feel-a so good-a that you want to jump in the a-ir and holler out-a: Praise the Lord, I feel so good-a!"

That time the punchline had been shouted from an even higher mountain. The crowd repeated the jumping and shouting. The choir had grown to a couple of thousand strong and was smoothly sliding into a do-wop back beat.

"Doop-doop-doop-doop-doop-doop-doop-doop."

"Joyyyyyyyyyyyyyy."

"Joyyyyyyyyyyyyyy."

"The message of Jesus is joy-a to the world-a. "

The audience roared their agreement, but even as they were roaring, the rollercoaster ride started to climb again. The choir was fading. The blue light was closing on Proverb. Again the crowd fell silent. Cynthia wondered how it must feel to have such power and control; what it felt like to have command of all those special effects. It was a miracle that Proverb was able to stay sane, if indeed he did. It was also quite clear why the deacons loathed him. He was now talking one on one, down home to the crowd.

"Now, I guess it's no secret that when I was a young boy, I was kinda wild. And I gotta tell you, way back then, one of the things that put me off coming to know Jesus sooner than I did was that I had this crazy idea that Christian folks didn't have no fun. I thought that being one with the Lord was a matter of giving up this and forgoing that and walking around with a long face and a sorrowful disposition. We know better than that now – don't we?"

The crowd howled, and Proverb beamed. A huge image of his face had come up on the back projection screen.

"We know that Jesus came to Earth to bring us joy. We know that Jesus came to Earth to make us know a true happiness. When I began to walk with Jesus, the first thing that I learned was that Jesus wants us all to have a good time."

Proverb paused to let that sink in. The eyes of the huge image seemed to be glowing slightly. For half a second Cynthia felt that they were looking deep inside her. She shook her head with a quick jerky motion. It was far too easy to be sucked in by this stuff.

"Now you may be saying, 'Hey, I may feel good right now, but there are times when I get downright miserable.' You may be saying, 'Hey, times are hard, Reverend Proverb. There are days when I ain't sure that I'm going to make it.' "

The stage began to darken. Gray storm clouds were driven across the screen behind the huge image of Proverb.

"Hard times, my friends. Hard times, friends and neighbors. Make no mistake about that. The whole of this country is being sorely tried and tested. The one thing you shouldn't believe, though, is that these hard times come from Jesus. It's the good times that come from Jesus. The hard times come from one place and one place only. They come straight from Hell. That's right! Straight from Hell! These hard times are the works of Satan – and don't let anyone tell you different!"

Proverb was in full cry.

"We all know them. We all know so-called good Christians who go around preaching doom and gloom, telling you that hard times are sent by Jesus because you've been weak, or because you've been bad. Well, my friends, I've got something right here and now to tell those so-called Christians. If they're not damned liars then they've been very badly informed."

There was the loudest roar yet from the crowd. They seemed to know who the damned liars were. Cynthia sneaked a covert glance at the deacons. They were in a tight knot around Senior Deacon Booth over on one side of the panoramatic window. They were watching Proverb like a flock of hawks. Booth was already red in the face and huffing and puffing. He barked at an aide.

"I want comprehensive tapes of this seditious nonsense on my desk first thing in the morning. You hear me?"

The aide nodded vigorously. Cynthia scowled. That had to be one bitch of a job, nursemaiding a piece of slime like Booth.

When he had sufficiently terrorized the aide, Booth turned to the other senior officers with a look of grim triumph. "I think, gentlemen, mere's one thing of which we can be certain. After this display – " He nodded contemptuously in the direction of the stage, " – we have ample, legitimate grounds to require the Reverend Proverb to provide answers to the Fifteen Questions."