A Savage Wisdom Read online

  “I thought you said Johnson was Presbyterian.”

  Nevers stopped as if caught in a lie.

  “Presbyterian, Episcopalian—what’s the difference?” he chuckled.

  “Okay, okay.” Toni Jo made whisking motions with her hand. “Go on.”

  “This was just after corn-shucking and hay-baling time. We walked the mile up-over and down the hill to the tent, which was lit up by kerosene lamps on six-foot posts. At the edge of the field, a yellow canvas banner announced, ‘T. Van Mahorn, Doctor of Divinity and Revivalist.’

  “A couple of the churches sponsoring the camp meeting had tables outside loaded with corn on the cob and hotdogs. The older kids were sparking—you know, courting. Flirting and such. The children played hide-and-seek, barking dogs chasing after them and giving away their positions. The adults gathered in groups of five or six, talking ominously of the weather and war. The cool air had an amber glow. The ground was covered with pinestraw and hay and cornshucks. People were still arriving by buggy or wagon. Some of the horses wore feedsacks and their bodies were giving off steam in the autumn dusk.

  “Us boys from the Village schemed and laughed in our own little knot. Lawrence had brought a frog that he planned to do something with, he hadn’t decided what yet, but he told us he’d know when the opportunity struck. Rex showed us three firecrackers he’d saved all the way from Fourth of July. We stuffed as many hotdogs as we could down our gullets, talking, as we ate, about the girls in their clusters, which ones had real breasts and which stuffed—they in turn looking at and talking about us. Andy called to a barefoot girl with blue ribbons in her sandy hair.

  “‘Hey, why don’t ch’all come sit in back wid us? We’ll show you a good time.’ The girl put a hand on one hip and made a smacking noise with her mouth, indicating her disgust at his crudeness.

  “‘She’ll be sitting wid us in five minutes, you watch,’ Andy bragged. ‘Say, baby, how about I buy you a Co-Cola, hanh? How ’bout it?’ The girl turned and tittered into the circle of faces.

  “Then ushers started calling for the people to gather inside the tent. A portable out-of-tune organ labored with a hymn. A haze of dust rose as the throng shuffled inside. Before the entrance was a large, painted sign:

  Enter, Ye Troubled and Weak of Spirit.

  EXPECT A MIRACLE

  Inside the tent, deacons distributed tambourines and fans with a mountain scene on one side and an ad for a funeral home on the other. Just as Lawrence had predicted, the girls worked their way to our seats and sat in front of us on a long plank resting on nail kegs.

  “Up front, the organist played ‘Shall We Gather at the River.’ A man in a yellow suit and red tie, presumably the Reverend T. Van Mahorn himself, sat in a lone chair on a small stage elevated by cement blocks stacked three high. The girls kept turning around as Lawrence pulled at the bows in their hair. The low roar of the crowd prevented the girls from hearing Rex strike a match against the board they were sitting on. The report of the firecracker drew a hatchet-faced usher to the aisle by our seats. He reached over to Rex with an offering plate attached to an eight-foot rod and rapped him on the head with it.

  “‘A word with you outside, young man,’ Hatchet-face said. He had a red nose and only two front teeth, one yellow and one black.

  “‘Kiss one for me if I don’t come back,’ Rex whispered as he fumbled past our feet and made a slitting motion with his finger across his throat.

  “Finally, the evangelist approached the pulpit. His eyes cast down, he gripped the heavy podium for a few seconds. The assembly grew quiet. He looked up. They looked back, expectant, hopeful, hurting for someone to ease their lives. For half a minute he stared at them, his expressionless face growing a frown. Then he paced heavily back and forth across the stage. He stopped behind the lectern, his frown now a scowl.

  “‘Are you waiting for me!?’ he shouted. ‘Do you think I can bring happiness to your hard lives?—your hard liiives?’ He derided the crowd, his voice a mallet beating, pounding their average souls into feeling worthless. ‘I can’t bring God to you. You should be ashamed.’ Many hung their heads. He looked down at them like a disappointed parent on a bad child. Then, his voice growing cheerful, his face brightening, he gave them back their lives. ‘I can’t bring God to you. God is already here. Where two or three are gathered in His name, He is among them. He’s the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end—Revelation 1:8.’

  “‘Testify!’ someone shouted from the back. The evangelist shook his head as if awakened from a trance.

  “‘The fields. Are alive. With the harvest. Of the Lord,’ he resumed in a rich baritone. ‘And God, as you know, will rip the tares from the wheat and burn them in eternal hell fire—Matthew 13:24 and following.’

  “Shouts sprang up from the congregation:

  —‘Amen, brother.’

  —‘Tell us more.’

  “‘You will reap just what you sow.’

  —‘Just what you sow,’ a chorus sang out.

  “‘Judgment Day. What a dreadful day it will be. To the unbeliever. To the believer, what a joyful day! In the twinkling of an eye, the Good Book says, we’ll be changed. Oh! I almost forgot. You must be born again—John 3:7.’

  “The crowd was getting worked up. They started shaking and beating the tambourines. Some of them stood up, shouting and throwing their arms fitfully skyward.

  “‘Yes, you must be born again. You know what I’m talking about, and yet—. Orphans! I’ve heard there’s orphans among us. But don’t forget, dear friends, we are all orphans! Lost in this mean old world. Without father, without mother-but-WAIT! God is everywhere. He did not abandon us. We abandoned Him! He made us, listen to me!’—and he whispered loudly with awe—‘a little lower than the angels. Oh, Jesus, thank you.’

  “Tears streamed from his eyes. He said, ‘Forgive me, friends, but when I think of what God has prepared for us in heaven, why, my heart feels like it’s being wranched by Jesus and the tears fill up my chest and overflow thew my eyes.’

  “‘Jesus, squeeze my heart,’ one woman pleaded, and we laughed at that. There was something catching about the enthusiasm. It got me so worked up, I reached forward and grabbed the girl’s shoulder in front of me.

  “‘Squeeze my heart, Susie,’ I begged. Laughing, she slapped my hand from her shoulder in such a coquettish way I wanted to take her in my arms right there and kiss her full on the mouth.

  “The Reverend T. Van Mahorn had been preaching for twenty minutes when suddenly a retarded-looking girl with purple pimples started up the aisle, garbling out something about a tongue of fire licking her stomach. When she reached the front, the evangelist lodged himself behind the sturdy lectern, using it like a blocker. The girl, running at full speed now, planted one foot on the stage and ran two steps straight up the pulpit, losing her momentum seven feet off the ground, then fell slap dab on her back with enough force to knock the breath from a heifer. The shocked people watched the girl writhing around in the hay and cornshucks, her mouth bubbling like a crab’s. Several of the ushers finally took the initiative and ran to help her.

  “‘STOP!’ the revivalist shouted. ‘Don’t touch her! Leave her there where Jesus flang her!’ The preacher kept up his delivery while the girl rolled moaning on the ground. After a while, she sat up, her hair decorated with straw, and an usher helped her to the front pew while Mahorn continued to exhort his congregation.

  “Then things got boring for a while. After everybody sang a hymn, an offering was taken to support what Mahorn called his i-tinerant ministry.’ Then they gave the invitation—. What church you go to?”

  “Methodist,” Toni Jo said.

  “You get the picture, then. Lots of crying and neck­hugging while deacons handed out nubby pencils and helped the new converts fill in little cards. I was figuring out what to say after the service to Susie-in-front-of-me when Mahorn starts up again.

  “‘Many of you tonight are here because you want to see a miracle.
exPECT a miracle. That’s what the sign said. Well, let me tell you something, people! God. Is not. A magician. Do you hear me? No-sir! God. Is a fearful God. The God of Moses. That same God who sent a consuming fire, a con-fla-GRA-tion, a sacred flame to eat up the unholy sacrifice to Baal. Who parted the Red Sea and destroyed an army with an easy sweep of His mighty hand. And you think He’s going to heal your matchstick arms and legs tonight? He who made the heavens and earth?

  “‘You, in the front row, on crutches, Don’t! Mock! God!’ Mahorn brushed his hair back. ‘You, in the wheelchair, Don’t Mock God! If your broken bodies are restored, how will you repay God? If you died, you’d go to live with Him, and you don’t want to die?’ Mahorn put both hands on his hips. ‘Faithless people. O-h-h-h-h-h,’ he shuddered, ‘I quake when I think that in the twinkling of an eye, God could consume this entire tent, this field, this largest state in the union. This world. With fire. Or what He will. The God of Abraham’s burning bush. Of Jonah’s whale.

  “‘You people. You-want, to-see, a-miracle?’ Some in the crowd cried Yes, begged for God’s mercy on their pain. ‘FAITHLESS! Do you think if God wanted bones that didn’t break He would have made them of clay? So. All you with lame legs and withered hands, of hurt hearts and feeble minds, do you want to see a miracle? Then step away from the platform. Go on! Do you want to see a demonstration of God’s power or not!?’ Many whimpers of protest reached his ears. ‘Then move away from the platform, I tell you. Make way for the sound of body and mind, the strong of heart. Move back, I say!’ Discouraged, confused, some angry, the people began to limp and skulk and wheel or be pushed away. ‘Now,’ he said, scanning across the crowd as if for someone hiding. ‘Who wants to see a miracle?’ A hand shot up. Three hands. A dozen.

  “‘Not a healing!’ the man said. ‘Not a trick to impress children and old women. No-sir! I’m talking about a bona-fide miracle.’ He paused and drew a handkerchief from inside his coat and wiped his face. ‘HYPOCRITES!’ he yelled, bending over the platform, veins popping from his forehead. A woman fainted. A child began to cry. ‘DON’T MOCK GOD!’ He staggered back from the effort and panted. Then softly, ‘Do you want to see a miracle? Don’t say yes unless your body means nothing to you. Who is willing to be crippled for Christ? God could easily heal this man over here with arthritis. Or this woman’s child.’ He paused to gather himself.

  “‘SELFISH! What you really want to see is proof of God’s power only if it helps you.’ The man gazed heavenward. ‘How many times, Lord, have charlatans stood where I’m standing and fooled your people with a few man-made tricks?’ He eyed the congregation. ‘You know what I’m talking about. Fakery. Planting people in the audience with crutches so they can throw them down and shout and bamboozle the rest of the poor suckers into a frenzy that will heal rheumatism and gout and even some forms of blindness. For a while. Tem-­po-rarily,’ he tick-tocked his head back and forth. He looked into the bewildered faces of the believers, making them doubt. ‘Long enough for him to get out of town with his traveling show and the good people’s money. And then, miraculously, they begin to hurt again, begin to see hazily. BLIND! Every one of them blind! Yes, people, blind to God’s real power.’

  “‘So then. If you want to see a real miracle, forget being healed. Is there anyone here willing to be blinded by God? He did it to Saul. Who became Paul. Who was not afraid of taking a new name and a new call. Who was made blind to see more clearly. So, who among you, WHOLE, is willing to be made lame in a mighty demonstration of the awesome power of Jehovah-God, the Ruler of Seven Heavens, nine circles of hell, and all the starry universe? Elohim. El-Shaddai. Adonai. Eloi-Eloi, lama sabachthani.’ The man extended both arms skyward, his coat fanned out, and he looked as if he might fly away. ‘Praise God, the Spirit is upon me.’

  “The man’s eyes grew unnaturally large, and let me tell you, Toni Jo, I was afraid, really afraid, for the first time in my life. It was the fear you get when someone familiar does something very strange, out of a sick fever maybe, and you know they’re not the person you knew.

  “‘Even should you die,’ he said. ‘Won’t you die someday, someway, anyway? The Lord cometh, I can feel Him among us. Let’s get down to it, then. Who, whole, is willing to become UN-whole? Who, living, is willing to die?”’

  Nevers stood and turned toward Toni Jo to dramatize the scene.

  “The preacher stopped, turned his back to the congregation, then whirled suddenly.

  “‘YOU! It might be you!’

  “‘Jesus, help me,’ a woman gasped, clutching her chest.

  “‘YOU! It might be you!’

  “‘Glory, take me Jesus, I’m ready,’ an old man said, raising his palms heavenward.

  “‘FAITH! This man has the faith only God can give. No, my good friend, God has not chosen you tonight. Go home and live another day. But someone,’ the Reverend Mahorn said, aiming his finger around the audience like a pointer in a game of chance. ‘Someone will die tonight. God will take him to demonstrate that He will not be mocked. Remember, He allowed she-bears to rip apart two and forty children who mocked Elisha’s bald head—Second Kings, chapter two. So. Come now. Make way down front. Jesus is tugging at your heart strings. Be MAIMED to show the power of God. Be-LAME, in-the-NAME, of-the-LORD. What a privilege, ladies and gentlemen. I wish it were me. Strike me, Jesus. I’m praying now. Jesus, strike me down.’ His face skyward, eyes asquint, arms lifted, he prayed.

  “‘NO!’ he gasped finally, exhausted. ‘It’s not to be, not tonight. So who will it be?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘God is a patient God. But He won’t wait forever. I’ll extend this invitation for one minute longer. Think about what a great witness for the Lord you’ll miss if you delay. Oh, friend, don’t do it. Don’t spurn God.’ The man, his face now contorted, sounded as if he were about to cry.

  “Heads began to turn toward the back. The crowd parted as a man made his way down front. The man broke through the mass of new believers near the podium. It was Mr. Thompson, owner of the biggest hardware store in town. Although a church-goer, he wasn’t known to be especially religious. He walked to the front with determination, as if he were going to tell the revivalist the gag was over and expose him as a fraud. Calmly, as he neared the platform, he raised his hands. ‘Strike me, Jesus,’ he said.

  “‘The power of God!’ Mahorn said. ‘Climb on stage with gladness, brother, for it will be the last time you ever use your legs. Praise God. Fear Him. Come on up.’

  “Mr. Thompson placed his hands on the platform and catapulted himself onto the planks, landing in a crouching position. As he stood, the Reverend Mahorn ran to him and touched him lightly on the chest with his palm.

  “‘Strike him, Jesus!’ he said, and the man fell like a boneless scarecrow at his feet. Then, from everywhere:

  —‘Praise God, it’s His will.’

  —‘Hallelujah, Thine the glory.’

  “The congregation took up the song.

  Hallelujah, Thine the glory.

  Hallelujah, Ah-men.

  Hallelujah, Thine the glory.

  Re-vive us a-gain.

  “‘Oh, Jesus!’ a shout came from the front. ‘I SEE,’ an old man began, ‘I see heaven opening before me. The hands of Jesus descending. The nail scars.’ He reached up. ‘Take me, Jesus—oh, Jesus, take me home,’ and he, too, fell in the dust like an empty pillowcase blown from a clothesline.

  “‘He’s dead!’ the woman beside him shouted. ‘My husband is gone to glo-ree. Blessèd be the name of the Lord.’ Her bright face was burning with joyful tears, and I was afraid for us all. I felt the Spirit sweeping through the tent and thought it would leave a path of destruction like a tornado and go out the tent onto the streets, through the town into the world, and either change every heart or kill every man, woman, and child in the attempt. Suddenly I found it hard to breathe. Something wrapped around my neck like a velvet snake and squeezed until everything turned black. The hand of God had reached down and taken me by the throat.’’
/>
  Harold Nevers stood spellbound before Toni Jo, his eyes unblinking.

  “Harold, you’re scaring me,” she said, giving him a shake. “Harold, are you all right?”

  Nevers shook his head to clear it of the memories and gave out a two-syllable snicker. Then a three-syllable chuckle that segued into full-bodied, uncontrollable laughter.

  “Yes,” he said after composing himself. “I’m fine. Now. But I wasn’t then. When I awoke, a beautiful girl­child stood over me, my head in her lap, her hair draped over my face. It was like shredded yellow silk and smelled of honeysuckle. Sitting up, I saw the carnage around me— chairs broken, pews overturned, people lying in all the postures of battlefield death. Everyone was either crying or praising God. An arm’s length away, Lawrence’s frog was squashed under a heavy bench board, its guts hanging out of its mouth.”

  Nevers took two steps and sat in the swing by Toni Jo.

  “I discovered that only the one man had died, the one who started the chain reaction. I don’t remember much after that until I was sitting on a small bridge over a dry creekbed, the smell of fresh creosote in the air. The girl­child was holding my hand in one of hers while caressing it with the other. A half moon was high in the clear sky. It was the tenderest moment of my life. She reached up and kissed my cheek and I reawakened to my body.

  “And I was glad that God had made woman. I thought I must have been in love and would surely marry this beautiful girlchild. I could see into our future. For years, she and I would meet secretly and pray and plan good but anonymous deeds to perform for the needy. I was so overwhelmed with love for this angelic creature that I began to return her kisses. I kissed her on the cheek and neck and mouth. And as I kissed, I thought, I don’t even know your name. I don’t even care who you are. I only know that I love you. Her hands were all over my chest, kneading me. Then they were behind my back, pulling me closer to her as she kissed me harder. She pushed me over and rolled on top of me, her thin golden hair falling in my face, the odor of honeysuckle invading my nostrils, my heart resonating inside my chest and I was in love, drunkenly floating, and then she straddled me and moved back and forth against me like she was riding a horse maddeningly across an open field, driving it faster and faster, crying, ‘Oh, oh,’ and then, ‘Oh God, oh God, oh-oh, God-God-God!’ and I exploded inside my pants and I pushed her off, hard, onto the planks and I pounded the bridge with my fist and said, ‘No-No! Not this. Not you! I don’t even know who you are. You’re beautiful and I love you and you’re just a child.’ I began to strike her with my palms about her arms and chest until her shouts brought me to my senses. Her hands protected her face and she was sobbing.