The Scream (4 page)

Pause for dramatic effect.

"These frightening statistics come to us from Pastor Daniel Furniss, nationally known evangelist and director of Liberty Christian Village, a religious community for teenagers with just the kind of troubles we've mentioned. Pastor Furniss contends that rock music is the
key factor
in the corruption of America's youth.

"Concurring with Pastor Furniss are Joel Wenker, author of
The Knock Rock Handbook
; and Esther Shrake, wife of the esteemed congressman from Vermont and founding member of Morality Over Music. They all feel that rock music must be stopped, before it's too late. And they're prepared to do some-thing about it.

"Pastor Furniss has been making headlines with his Teens for Christ Task Force, which selectively pickets targeted groups, and something he calls the Big Blaze for Jesus, wherein teenagers are invited to bring their rock and roll records, posters, and magazines to Liberty Christian Village every Sunday night, throw them on the big blaze, and hopefully"-Moynihan added just a touch of soft-spoken sarcasm-"see the light." He turned to the audience with a flourish, voice rising.

"And M.O.M. has lobbied to get sweeping restraints in place on record sales, on video broadcasts, and on the airwaves. Congressman Shrake has recently introduced a bill into Congress that would require the rating of albums, much like the rating of films; forbid the sale to minors of albums and concert tickets of acts featuring objectionable references; empower the FCC to ban airplay of any 'adult' material which violates prescribed 'community' standards; and establish a screening board to check music videos for references to sex, violence, drug use, occult practices, or anything that promotes, and I quote"-and Dick raised his eyebrows just a little as he read this-"'disrespect for traditional family-oriented values.'"

He turned toward Esther Shrake, his shoulders shrugging, his face an open question mark. The floor was obviously hers. Mrs. Shrake, a trim, chinless woman with wide blue eyes and neatly tailored hair and suit, cleared her throat. "First of all, Dick," she said, "let me say that this is not a censorship issue."

A titter rose from the heathen element of the audience. Moynihan didn't say anything, though whether this was in agreement or just the playing out of more rope was impossible to say. Esther composed herself and pressed on, enunciating every word as though she were a grade-school teacher driving the point home to a group of particularly slow children.

"We are simply trying to give parents the information they need to make an informed choice! Parents have a right to control the kind of stuff their children are being exposed to. The legislation proposed simply gives them the means to recognize that right."

It was an impassioned appeal, and it drew a mixture of catcalls and applause from the audience. Jake rolled his eyes dramatically and shook his head in disbelief.

Moynihan turned to address the man three seats to Jake's left. "Pastor, perhaps you'd like to elaborate on that a bit."

"Yes, I would, Dick." Pastor Furniss's rich baritone voice had a hint of hickory-smoked good ol' boy in it, friendly and forceful all at once. He was plump and serge-suited, with a silver-sprayed pompadour and expensive black leather shoes.

"I've got a number of things I'd like to say on the subject, but let me start with this:

"Your kids are in trouble, people. Your families are in trouble. This country's in trouble. And a big part of it is pouring out of your kid's stereo system. When he turns on the latest record by The Slabs or The Scream or Jacob Hamer or what have you, he is leaving himself wide open for a sound that promotes sexual permissiveness, drug abuse, alcoholism, disobedience of parents, rebelliousness, violence, Satan worship, occult practices, abortion, and suicide."

Jake looked over at Yke Dykeburn, the blond-maned giant to his immediate right. Yke was making a goon-face and jabbing his thumb at Furniss as if to say,
Duh, yeah, wut he say
. It would have been difficult not to laugh; and Jake obliged.

"Of course, these gentlemen find it amusing," Furniss continued, unruffled. "They're the ones who are creating the problems, and reaping the benefits. They, and others like them, are directly responsible for the death, debasement, and misery plaguing our youth-"

Boos and applause, in equal frenzied parts, cut him off. He shrugged, grinned, and nodded in a way that dismissed his critics and acknowledged his supporters simultaneously.
You can't say he's not slick
, Jake thought, and then Furniss got another shot in.

"I just pray that America will be strong enough to come to its senses, 'cause we'll be in one heck of a mess if we don't get back on the track, and I do mean pronto." He deferred, then, to the crowd's mixed response and Dick Moynihan's next comment.

"So, on the one hand," Moynihan said, "we've got one group saying that the devil is making our teenagers do it; and whether you believe in the devil or not, you've got to agree that rock music is dangerous in that it promotes destructive and anti-social behavior in our young people.

"And then"-indicating Jake's side of the panel at long last-"we've got these guys over here."

A healthy portion of the audience laughed: for the first time during the show. Moynihan was a master of comedic timing and the subtle release of tension. Even Furniss grinned, giving credit where due. Jake had to do the same, despite the fact that Furniss was the most pernicious rectal grievance in his life at the moment.

"Let's start with Jerry Crane, promoter of the Rock Aid concert being held this Saturday at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia," Moynihan said. Jerry cast a tanned and robust nod to the crowd. He was pushing fifty in style, and it was clear that he knew it; at the same time, the stress he was under was equally clear. "Now, in a generation that has witnessed Band Aid, Live Aid, Farm Aid, Hearing Aid, AIDS Aid, Amnesty Aid, Nature Aid, Space Aid, and even the Florida-based Gator Aid-a benefit to preserve the Everglades from developers-Rock Aid is still something of an anomaly. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first time that the rock industry has thrown a benefit concert in self-defense. They claim that the proposed legislation is the thin end of the wedge, that it attacks freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the separation of church and state . . ." He let it trail off, hinting that the litany of accusations was nothing new.

"With Mr. Crane are two men whose rock bands will performing at Rock Aid: Yke Dykeburn, lead singer for the heavy metal group The Slabs, and Jacob Hamer, founder of the aptly named Jacob Hamer Band."

Jake's calculated third of the crowd came through with applause. It was interesting to note that fewer Christians than rockers booed the opposition. He tried to imagine Aunt Bea standing up, raising her fist, and shouting POLITENESS RULES! at the top of her lungs. Somehow, it didn't quite jibe. Maybe that was the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. Or maybe not. Who knew.

"Mr. Hamer," the show host said. "You came to notoriety with your recent hit song, 'TV Ministries.' Not only is it enjoying its seventh week on the Billboard charts, it has also aroused the ire of virtually every evangelical group in the nation."

Jake smiled.

Moynihan smiled back. "We'd like to show a clip from that video, if you don't mind."

"Please do."

There was a pause in the stage monitors, a second or two of video static that the home audience didn't catch . . . and then the last verse of the song kicked in, rock-solid and pumping. Peter Stewart, the Hamer Band's lead guitarist, appeared on the screen in the guise of a gawky and ludicrous nerd, lying on his bed, watching television. His hair was slicked back with sweat and Brylcreem. Enormous horn-rimmed glasses perched on his beaky nose. He was clad in a white pajama shirt, a black pajama tie, black pajama pants, and black and white bunny slippers. A big fuzzy Bible-shaped pillow was clutched to his bosom as he lip-synched to Jake's voice . . .

"I am a sinner,

Yes, I'm lost in sin.

Each night I

Let the holy angels in.

I do exactly

What they want of me;

I give them money

And they set me free."

The nerd scribbles checks furiously and holds them out to the screen as an impossibly long arm reaches out to grab his big fuzzy wallet.

"I have no trouble

When I go to sleep.

I lay me down

The Lord my soul to keep.

I work for Jesus

By the light of day.

We fight abortions

And the E.R.A."

Cut to extreme close-up of Pete, in fish-eye distortion, stamping big red forbidden symbols on records, tapes, magazine centerfolds, books, newspapers . . .

"They told me

'Blessed are the poor and meek'!

So now I send them

Money every week.

It's so nice

To be e-van-gel-i-cal.

It's been so peaceful

Since they took control!"

Then came the thundering chorus, with the visuals jump-cutting rapidly:

"TEE-VEE MINISTRIES!

TEE-VEE MINISTRIES GOT ME!

TEE-VEE MINISTRIES!"

Cut to the nerd in the straitjacket, clutching his Bible-pillow and howling as he's overwhelmed by a half dozen gorgeous, nearly naked women . . .

"TEE-VEE MINISTRIES!"

Cut to the Jacob Hamer Band in live performance, Jake spinning, guitar in hand, as Hempstead the sax player ground out his lines over Jesse's wall o' synth sound and Bob One and Bob Two thrashed through the beat . . .

"TEE-VEE MINISTRIES GOT ME!"

Cut to a hundred black and white bunny slippers, goose-stepping in unison, then black and white documentary footage of ten thousand lock-stepped Nazi jackboots . . .

"TEE-VEE MINISTRIES!"

And Jimmy Pastor, pounding the pulpit to bring his point home . . .

"MINISTRIES!"

And Adolph Hitler, exhorting the crowd to hysteria . . .

"MINISTRIES, MINISTRIES!"

And brownshirts, burning piles of forbidden books . . .

"MINISTRIES!"

And Pastor Furniss, tossing a pile of records into a blazing pyre . . .

"I think you get the idea," Dick Moynihan said, as the music faded and the screen went blank. He needn't have bothered.

Because the audience was waving its hands and wiggling in its collective seat like an assembly of grade-school kids who all had to pee at once. There was a beehive hum of mutterance, some hoots and hollers from either side of the theological fence. They had gotten the idea, alright; and they all had something to say.

Dick Moynihan moved up the aisle toward the back of the churning throngs. There was no way of saying where he'd stop. who he'd pick, what the chosen would choose to say. All that Jake knew for sure was that the smell of blood in the room was stronger now. Much stronger.

Much closer to the surface.

Let it come
, Jake thought.
Let's see your best shot, clowns. I'm ready
.

Dick's mike went down in the next-to-last row. It came up with a steel-eyed matron who looked fit to spit nails. "That was the most insulting thing I've ever seen," she said, staring straight at Jake. "And I'd just like to know who in the world you think you are!"

CLAPPITYCLAPPITYCLAP!
Aunt Bea and roughly a hundred other people seemed to agree. Boy, were they pissed. Jake did a spot-check of his people: the redhead and her boyfriend were smiling and shaking their heads; the guy with the mustache was laughing his head off and waving his hand at Dick; the eagle-lady looked as pissed as his opponents.
Good for them
, he thought.
The salt of the earth, the spice of life
.

Then it was time to address the nice lady's statement. The applause was dwindling at last.

"Thank you, thank you," he said, feigning bashfulness. "And I'd especially like to thank
you
, ma'am, for bringing up the word 'insulting,' since I'd put it right at the heart of this debate.

"See, it's like this: everybody's got a different idea as to what they want out of life. Some people like Lawrence Welk, some people like the Dead Kennedys. Some people kiss hot and sloppy, and some people like it with their lips sealed tight. These are largely matters of taste and disposition, from people who have different ways of looking at the world.

"But then you've got your born-again types, and they're a very special group. They've got exclusive dibs on the voice of God, you see. It says so, right in their manual.

"Now, Pastor Furniss and his friends are going to sound very logical and reasonable today, because they're in front of a secular audience. That means us heathen folk.

"But let me just read you this 'Action-Gram' that we intercepted just last week from Liberty Christian Village, and then tell me how reasonable they sound."

Jake glanced over at Furniss as he pulled the letter from an inside jacket pocket and lavishly unfolded it. Furniss was trying hard to conceal his anger and, yes, sudden embarrassment, but it wasn't working all that well.
Ha ha, fucker
, Jake thought, and then began to read in a teary, tremulous voice:

"'Dear friend of Liberty Christian Village,'" it began. "'You hold the future of America in your hands. Without a blessed miracle, every teenager in our great land could well find himself facing the roasting fires of Hell!

"'I'm speaking of the vicious assault on our children's moral fabric that Satan is waging through his insidious Murder Music. We must have a
MILLION-DOLLAR MIRACLE
immediately-or we will lose the fight!'"

The first chuckles began to issue from the prorock crowd. Yke laughed out loud. Pastor Furniss did not.

"'Satan has hit us like never before since we obeyed God's call to "stand in the gap" for North America's teenagers. Satan has been hurt as we've led the fight against his life-destroying rock music-a fight others have feared. Thousands of teens are finding our blessed Savior through our ministry, and Satan is trying to shut us down before we can reach millions through our TV specials.'"

The laughter was getting louder now. Yke's face was almost as red as Fumiss's, for exactly the opposite reason. The furious silence of the Chosen was a palpable, terrible thing.