The Bastard Hand (4 page)

I’d been overlooked. I stood up, began easing my way to the far end of the church. The only thing to do was find the nearest exit and get my ass out of there. So long, Rev. Nice knowing you.

The whole time, Reverend Childe struggled to be heard. But no one was listening. Just as I’d reached the wall and was making my way toward the front doors, he hefted his Bible in the air, then slammed it down forcefully on the floor.

It made an incredible noise, cutting through the shouts and screams of the congregation and echoing vividly throughout the church.

As the echo died, there was an audible gasp from every mouth. I stopped in my tracks and stared. All eyes were on Childe now, and silence again reigned.

Looking back at each and every one of them, Childe said, “There you go. There’s your Bible. Why don’t you just go all the way with it? Why don’t you just stomp on that sucker ’til there ain’t nothing left but a pulpy mass?”

No one spoke.

Childe crossed his arms. “Go on,” he said. “If you ain’t got no respect for what it says, go on and stomp on it.”

The Devil himself had appeared in a cloud of smoke and fire right there in the middle of the church. No one dared to move or speak. Reverend Childe had just performed an incredible blasphemy, and the anger had turned to numb dread.

Finally, Reverend Page stepped forward, his voice shaking. “Reverend Childe . . . maybe you’d be good enough to explain the meaning of this outrage.”

Childe nodded, then leaned over to pick up his Bible from the floor. He made a show of dusting it off, setting it gently on the podium. Then he pointed to the old woman with a long bony finger. “You, Sister. How did that make you feel?”

She only stared at him, unbelieving. Childe turned to someone else, posed the same question. Still no answer. He asked three more people, “How did that make you feel?” and then the old man who suggested beating the devil out of him spoke up. He said, “Angry. It made me angry as hell.”

A smattering of people nodded, voiced agreement. The fury had died down, but fists were still clenched.

Childe said, “Anger. The righteous anger of men against degradation.”

A confused murmur went through the crowd. Everyone glanced at each other, hoping that someone would understand what this was all about. No one did. The violent atmosphere surged again.

Before it could peak, Reverend Childe said, “Brothers and Sisters, you had every right to be angry. All your lives you’ve heard that word. Nigger. You’ve struggled to be good Christians in a world that sometimes seems as if it wasn’t made for you. You’ve dealt with every kind of humiliation, every variety of degradation. You’ve fought for your human dignity, the dignity God gave you, and you’ve reveled in whatever small triumphs you’ve been able to achieve. And for what?”

His words were met with silence, and my heart beat fast.

He said, “For what? So that some white man could come into your church—your one safe haven—and call you a nigger.”

More mumbling through the congregation, torn between anger and confusion. I had no idea where he was going with this, but I did know that it would be a miracle if he walked out of this church in one piece.

Reverend Page shook his head, said, “This is all very . . . Reverend, please explain what this is all about. You can’t just come in here and—”

“I’ll tell you what it’s all about,” Childe said. “It’s about anger! It’s about rage, Reverend!” He cast his eyes back on the congregation, eyes that suddenly burned fever-bright, glittering. “It’s about hatred! But mostly . . . mostly, Brothers and Sisters . . .” and his voice went low, “ . . . it’s about control.”

That softly spoken word had more impact than all the shouting and screaming. It seemed to ring against the far walls, one lone ghost of a word in the silence.

I felt a cold chill crawl up my back. Strangely, my hands began to ache. I didn’t look at them, not wanting to see that golden glow.

“Control,” he said. “Because, with a word, a single word, I controlled you.”

An embarrassed, uncomfortable moment followed. Eyes shifted, feet shuffled. A few throats cleared.

Holding his Bible, Reverend Childe stepped away from the podium and strolled almost casually out in front of it. He said, “Do you understand that, Brothers and Sisters? I controlled you. With a single, ugly little word, you turned away from God and gave yourselves to hate.” He shook his head with exaggerated sadness. “Ah, God have mercy on us, have mercy on our poor souls. I heard the Devil laughing.”

Another startled murmur went through the congregation. From where I stood, all the parishioners were one being, moving and making noise collectively. One big organism under Childe’s sway. Already, the anger had faded, leaving faces slack and pliable.

Childe started treading back and forth on the stage, his long lean form like a swinging pendulum hypnotizing every mind. “First of all, Brothers and Sisters,” he said gently, “I’m sorry as can be for shocking you like that. Sometimes, the way God speaks through me is a trifle on the . . . eccentric side. I hope you’ll forgive me for saying that ugly, filthy word. But I feel that the duty He’s given me is to shake things up some. To rattle the flock and wake ’em up. You see, good people . . . we can’t take nothing for granted. The freedoms we enjoy, the small dignities we possess, are ours only through the grace of God.”

Then that miracle happened. Someone said, “Amen!”

Another one followed. Then another.

Over the next few minutes, Reverend Childe did the impossible. He made those people love him. Of course, later, I would see him pull it off time and time again, but this was the first time and all I could do was stand there stunned while he made the women swoon, the men cry with emotion, the children shout and sing. Something about the way he looked, the way he talked, the way he moved.

Even I—who knew something about his true beliefs—wasn’t totally immune to his magnetism. I watched him, fascinated, while he spoke of Christian brotherhood, no matter the color of your skin, fighting Satan’s power with the love of God, being ever vigilant for evil to rear its head anywhere, anytime.

As he spoke his pace began picking up, his voice grew steadily stronger, his strolling back and forth on the stage became faster and more frenzied, until he was screaming and ranting, waving his Bible in the air. “We are all God’s sheep!” he said. “All of us!”

The congregation was bursting with love and righteous fervor. The old woman shouted, “Hallelujah!” and someone answered with “Praise Him! Praise Him!” I realized my jaw was hanging slack with amazement. All the anger, all that violence that threatened to explode only moments ago, had dissipated.

Reverend Childe had brought old time religion to the Haley Baptist Church.

After the sermon, everyone headed down to the basement for a dinner of roast beef and mashed potatoes with gravy and the best goddamn apple pie I’d ever tasted. I ate ravenously, despite the insistent pain of my broken tooth, and the dull ache in my fingers.

Almost the entire congregation swarmed around Reverend Childe while he ate. A few people hung back—a handful of wiser men who still felt uneasy about him—but they were in the minority. All the women clamored, standing in line to shake his hand and tell him how much his sermon moved them. Childe would politely wipe his hands and say, “Thankee” through a mouthful of meat. You could smell desire in the air.

After getting halfway through my third piece of pie, I went outside to wait for him. The sun was just sinking behind the clutter of buildings and houses in the west, leaving the sky red. I lit up a cigarette and listened to the distant wail of ambulance sirens and barking dogs and the occasional far-off gunshot. The gunshots made me think of the Bible in my bag, with its clean little hole right through the middle. The image seemed significant somehow, but I couldn’t quite grasp it. I thought of the name inscribed in the inside cover, Jathed Garrity, and Kimberly—whoever that was—and wondered how those mysterious folks would’ve felt about Childe’s sermon.

Ten or fifteen minutes went by before he came out of the church. I’d just decided to leave when he came down the stairs, a small group of people still hovering around him. Reverend Page hung behind, smiling, and Childe shook hands and grinned and said, “Thankee” a dozen times.

He saw me and called, “Hold up, Charlie ol’ son! Don’t go running off just yet.”

I waited. Eventually everyone sauntered off, spiritually invigorated and stuffed with food. Reverend Childe and Reverend Page trotted down, and I went to meet them at the foot of the stairs. Page clasped my hand, said, “Did you know what Reverend Childe was going to do, Brother Charlie?”

I shook my head, and Page said, “It was spectacular, though, wasn’t it? Unconventional, that’s for sure. But it certainly did get the message across.”

“Kind of you, Brother,” Childe said, clapping Page on the shoulder. “It was a right honor to do it. You’ve got the finest congregation here I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a real risky proposition, walking into someone’s church and saying something like what I said, but the Lord’s light’s strong in ’em. It’s obvious you’re doing God’s work here.”

I stood there watching them stroke each other’s divine egos for a few minutes, then said, “Well, I appreciate the in-vite, Childe. It was fun, but I guess I’d better get moving.”

His face went serious. “What, you mean on down to Florida? Already?”

“Well, probably tomorrow morning. I figured I’d find a room tonight and get some rest. Got a long way to go.”

He shook his head. “I won’t hear of it. Why don’t you come on with me? I got a real nice place all set up and I just know they wouldn’t mind an extra body.”

“That’s nice of you, but—”

“Why, ain’t nothing nice about it at all, Charlie. It’d be my pleasure. Why don’t you come on with me? I sure would appreciate your company.”

He looked so earnest, and I was so low on funds, that I couldn’t really refuse. I smiled, said, “Okay, Reverend. You got yourself a bunk-mate.”

“Well, all right!” he said, squeezing my arm. He turned back to Page, pumped his hand up and down. “Thanks again for allowing me the pleasure of addressing your flock today, Brother. I do believe I got as much out of it as anyone.”

“The honor was ours,” Page said, and I settled in for some more preacher-camaraderie. By the time they were done, the sky was black and the night had grown strangely quiet. Page walked with us to Childe’s car, an early ’70’s model Chevy Malibu, shit-brown and rusty. A bumper sticker in the rear window read JESUS IS MY CO-PILOT.

They gripped each other’s shoulders and pumped each other’s hands some more, and Page said, “Have a safe trip, Brother. And good luck to you down in Cuba Landing.”

Childe thanked him profusely, grinning, and I wondered if his jaw muscles ever hurt. He was still grinning when Page finally walked off back to his church. Then he turned to me. “Well, Charlie, ready to go?”

He climbed in his car, then reached over to open the passenger door.

And then it dawned on me how strange this all was. I stood there for a moment, knowing suddenly that I should just turn around and walk off. The grin on Childe’s face, the outrageous friendliness, the bizarre spectacle in the church, all of it struck me suddenly as dangerous insanity.

The dome light was on in the car, and Reverend Childe leaned over to look at me. He said, “Everything all right, Charlie?”

I nodded, and, amazingly, my uneasiness wavered. Maybe I was being paranoid. I tended to do that sometimes.

I got in the car, closed the door, and Childe grinned at me and pulled out of the church parking lot. I looked at his honest workingman face, and decided I was definitely being paranoid.

But, for a second there, I knew in my heart that the Reverend was bad news.

Reverend Childe didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t say anything to suggest it, and he didn’t even look particularly confused, but I knew. We’d been driving for almost an hour around the scummiest parts of the city, and I recognized a few buildings and signs that we passed at least twice. I thought about saying something, but the Reverend didn’t seem concerned at all and I realized that there was no reason why I should be concerned either.

He talked almost non-stop the whole time. “I was digging around early this afternoon, looking for a good place to hole up, when someone gave me the word about this little joint where a man could kick back and relax for a spell. A big ol’ bed to sleep in, good quality whiskey to drink, billiard tables, everything. And all it costs is three hundred bucks a night. Bargain at twice the price.”

I interrupted him there, said, “Uh, Rev . . . I don’t have three hundred bucks to spend on a place to stay the night.”

He laughed, glanced over at me. “Well, hell Charlie, I know that! Just look at you! You’re a real nice fella, but it don’t take a brain surgeon to see you ain’t exactly loaded down with cash. I wouldn’t have invited you along if I didn’t intend to take care of ya. S’on me tonight.”

“No way. I can’t let you—”

“Would you stop arguing with me? I got more cash than I know what to do with, ol’ son. You just relax.”

So I relaxed.

Despite his odd behavior, and the strange feeling I had outside the Haley Baptist Church, I felt comfortable with him. He was a lot like Kyle—Kyle then, not now. Sort of freewheeling, jolly, irreverent. These days, Kyle was just a pain in the ass.

Thinking of him started my mind off on a bunch of other things I didn’t want to think about, so I pushed them aside and gazed out the window.

The city was a schizophrenic mess. No rhyme or reason. Auto body shops with battered signs from as long ago as the ’30’s squatted morbidly next to kwik-stop convenience stores obviously slapped together in more recent years. Even the newer buildings looked shabby, as if the malady of ungraceful age was contagious and spreading. We drove through the heart of a tenement project under the shadow of a freeway, and black children played in the dark glass-and-garbage-strewn front lots. Teenagers in gang colors leaned against parked cars, rap music pounding, and gazed at us dispassionately as we drove by.