The Old Man and Mr. Smith Page 8

  ‘I have been tempted to sin!’ cried the man, choking a sob.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Mr Smith.

  The pause the preacher left was enormous, impertinent. There was a shot of the congregation. Oval heads with rimless glasses, women with lined faces, holding their hands close to their faces, ready for emergencies, young people, open as books, but with traces of scepticism here and there.

  ‘I have been tempted to sin!’ said the preacher, in a normal voice, as though recapitulating a dictation for schoolchildren.

  A man in the audience shouted, ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Glory be,’ echoed another.

  The pause went on while the preacher seemed to try and meet every eye in the house.

  And finally he whispered, ‘I have been tempted to sin!’

  ‘Get on with it,’ cried Mr Smith.

  The preacher shouted once again, pointing a trembling finger at the space before him.

  ‘I have had the Devil in my parlour!’

  ‘Liar!’ yelled Mr Smith, wrenching his hand free from the Old Man’s grasp.

  ‘He appeared to me just as Mrs Henchman was preparing for bed, after a hard day helping in my ministry … Charlene Henchman is a wonderful human being …’

  Shouts of ‘Yeah,’ ‘Amen,’ ‘Alleluia,’ and ‘They don’t come no better.’

  ‘I said to her, go to your room, honey, I got old Satan here for company, and I’ve got to find my own way of showing him the door.’ He paused dramatically. ‘Mrs Henchman went up to her room, and never so much as asked a question,’ he said softly. Then, with rising emotion, ‘I turned to Satan … I turned to the critter, looked him straight in the eye, and cried out, and I quote: “Take Linda Carpucci right out of my life, Satan” … I got a wife already … I don’t need no Linda Carpucci to fill my idle moments with thoughts of sin and the desires of the flesh. Mrs Henchman has given me six wonderful kids, from Joey Henchman junior right down to La Verne, our youngest. You gotta be crazy if you think I’m going to sacrifice all of Almighty God’s bounty, showered around my unworthy head, just because that old son of a gun Satan lays Linda Carpucci in my path, one night, when my precious Charlene was working late at the ministry, sealing envelopes so that our great message could be carried to the hundred and upwards foreign countries in which we operate.’ His voice rose again, and he sobbed, ‘I paraphrased the words of our Lord to Satan, and I called out, “Get thee behind me, Satan, and take Linda Carpucci with you!”’

  There was a great show of applause and approval from the hall, while Mr Smith was stung into a transport of anger.

  ‘Liar! Filthy, scurrilous liar! I never saw you before in my life! And who the hell is Linda Carpucci?’

  On the screen the Reverend Henchman was nodding gratefully to his public, like a game-show host, mouthing mute thank yous and thank you very muches.

  ‘I’ve got to go there! Now! This is provocation of the most intolerable kind! I’m off!’

  ‘We have no money.’

  ‘To hell with money.’

  ‘We can’t pay the hotel.’

  ‘To hell with the hotel.’

  On screen, the great hall faded, and a voice took over: ‘We will return to the Reverend John Henchman live from the Stained Glass Church of Many Colours, University of the Soul, Henchman City, Arkansas, after this word from our sponsor, Whistler’s Mother Cake Mix.’

  ‘That’s the address,’ snapped Mr Smith. ‘Are you going to bestir yourself, or shall I go alone?’

  ‘Think again. This is probably only one of many such outbursts …’

  ‘This one has struck me straight between the eyes. I have been slandered, libelled. I’m impulsive. I can’t take it. I won’t! It’s too unfair!’

  He held out his hand, and the Old Man took it.

  Just before they vanished into thin air, the Old Man had time to ask, with a trace of malice, ‘What does it feel like to be part of the American Dream? A negative part, but oh, how important. Eh, old critter?’

  ‘Just checking,’ called the maid, and when she heard neither human voices nor the television, she went in. ‘Baggage still here,’ she murmured. ‘Funny, didn’t see them go out.’

  And she switched the bedside radio on. Light music, without which no bed could be made.

  ‘Funny,’ she said aloud, ‘they never slept in the beds. Guess it takes all sorts …’

  And she turned on the TV as well as the radio in order to have her fill of entertainment. Then she sat on one of the beds and lit a cigarette.

  « 6 »

  In a rush of warm wind, which dislodged one or two hats, the Old Man and Mr Smith landed in the aisle of the Stained Glass Church of Many Colours, a surprising building made up entirely of translucent bible scenes held together by a modern tent-like structure, the fierce southern sun bringing out the blues and reds and yellow ochres in all their primal intensity.

  A group of men in green tuxedos and women in old-fashioned rose-coloured party dresses constituted a choir which sang the occasional hymn or religious jingle in a syncopated harmony, clicking their fingers and flexing their knees to the rhythm.

  The freely perspiring preacher, the Reverend Henchman, was on the stage, exactly where he had been before the commercial break, but he seemed almost pathetically small after the magnification of the television screen. Only on the television monitors, which were everywhere suspended, could every bead of sweat be seen.

  ‘I will pause in my sermon, to allow our fine choir to sing the hymn I wrote with my own hands, inspired by … you know who …’ (A huge roar of confirmation. This was evidently a conditioned reflex, a signal for Alleluias and Ri-i-ights and You’d Better Believe Its, accompanied on Henchman’s face by a wink of confirmation, which dislodged some perspiration from his brow like a flight of frightened insects.) ‘… on the occasion … on the occasion of our second son’s birth … of Lionel Henchman’s coming, right here, on campus … the music … the music was composed by Charlene Henchman …’ (Another roar, while a big, flat-chested lady with a keyboard of large teeth and a bouffant hairstyle, like petrified candy floss, muttered, ‘Praise the Lord,’ on the monitor, her streamlined glasses, with their motif of stylized butterflies, reflecting the many-coloured spotlights.) ‘… she dictated the tune right from her bed of labour … by humming it into the ear of our wonderful orchestrator and resident organist, Digby Stattles – take a bow, Digby …’ (And an organ appeared from nowhere, rising into view with a man in a white bolero, smothered with sequins, who sat at the keyboard and played a saccharine voluntary while turning round as far as possible on his seat to acknowledge the anticipated applause. The notes trembled like jelly, while the imitation organ tubes, which were fashioned of some material like perspex, and contained strip lighting bent into religious symbols, such as crosses, stars, and stylized hands, two fingers raised in benediction, as well as crowns of thorns and halos, changed colour endlessly in a computerized orgy of pastel shades.)

  ‘The hymn will be rendered by our Church of Many Colours Male and Female Choir … yes, folks, give them a hand …’ Henchman ranted when the organ had fully risen. ‘This is not a ministry which insists on silence … With what … with what is silence most often associated? … The tomb … Right! … This is a ministry of enthusiasm. Of life! Yes – of humour!’ (And he laughed breathlessly.) ‘This is a ministry of humour! God has a sense of humour! Heck, he must have! … Judge by some of the creatures he decorated his green Earth with … hippopotamus … Ever see one of those?’ (Yeah!) ‘Now, whoever thought up a hippopotamus, he just got to have a sense o’ humour, know what I mean? … Know what I mean? …’ At this point, Henchman glanced at Charlene, who had lost her smile in a big way. ‘However, I digress,’ he said, gravely. ‘OK, folks … Charlene’s hymn!’ (The smile was back.) ‘“Come Join Your Tiny Hands in Prayer”, and I want you all to join in to the chorus, which goes “Hands in Prayer, Hands in Prayer, Hands in Prayer” repeated just three times. Got it? Take it away, Digby.’

  As the hymn began, some members of the congregation, imbued with the spirit of sharing, pushed up to make way for Mr Smith and the Old Man. Mr Smith sat with alacrity, right onto a newspaper which his neighbour had left there. The Old Man settled on the aisle with some difficulty, since the space left him by Mr Smith was hardly adequate for his large frame. Mr Smith lifted himself slightly, and removed the newspaper from under him. The headline caught his immediate attention. ‘Evangelist Henchman slapped with $6 million paternity suit by ex-stripper.’

  It appeared that Linda Carpucci had sung in the choir a year ago, having allegedly caught the Reverend Henchman’s attention in a nightclub in Baton Rouge, where her principal activity had been to rotate tassels from her nipples. This task she accomplished with such application and such diligence that the Reverend, with uncanny perception, recognized great new material for the musical section of his ministry. She was subsequently initiated, according to the newspaper, finding both Jesus and the Reverend Henchman at one and the same time. One curious fact, remarked the journalist, not without malice: nine months to a day after being born again, Miss Carpucci passed on her knowledge of these wonders to a curly-haired little daughter named Josie. Weight six and a half pounds, eyes blue, distinguishing marks a tendency towards excessive perspiration and a predilection for screaming. From these facts it was almost automatic that a great lawyer, Sharkey Pulse, always poking round the trashcans of society for what he called angles, should quote $6 million as a decent fee for a paternity suit.

  ‘Don’t even ask about what’s just or unjust,’ he said on the phone from his Portland, Oregon office. ‘Just ask if the son of a gun can afford it. And if it happens to come out of the pockets of the born again, that’s just too bad. Thanks to me they’ll become wise
again.’

  Mr Smith nudged the Old Man, who was unwilling to take the newspaper. He was rather taken by the simple-minded jingle and joined in in a stentorian diapason every time ‘Hands in Prayer’ was called for. As far as church music was concerned, Bach rather frightened the Old Man by his ferocious logic and extraordinary inventiveness, which demanded, in all serenity, a devotional enslavement. Handel seemed to the Old Man more flamboyant, more theatrical, suggesting that a glut of grace notes inevitably culminated in a state of grace. This kind of nursery-rhyme tune, as pristine as blancmange, offended nothing but the occasional intelligence, and gave time to the Reverend to wipe his brow with a couple of bath towels.

  When the young adults had finished their paeon to infantile piety on an acidulated final chord, the Reverend, now dried off and pomaded, came forward out of his corner for the next round of the Good Fight, while his seconds retired into the wings with their combs, brushes, and towels.

  ‘I’m through with Satan,’ said Henchman jovially.

  There were stirrings of enthusiasm in the church.

  ‘You know where Satan can go as far as I’m concerned? He can go there where he chose to set up house. There’s nothing bad about the word I’m about to use. It’s merely descriptive of a state of mind. Satan can go to hell.’

  Great excitement, while Smith tried to struggle to his feet. The Old Man restrained him with superhuman strength.

  ‘Don’t be a fool!’ hissed the Old Man. ‘There are bound to be better opportunities than this if you must lose your composure.’

  Mr Smith waved the newspaper before the Old Man’s face, and the Old Man understood that his perusal of it was the price of Mr Smith’s good behaviour.

  Just then the tension lapsed. The Reverend Henchman relaxed, the audience began to gabble.

  ‘OK, folks. Relax. We’re in a commercial break!’ shouted the floor manager.

  ‘What has happened?’ asked the Old Man, trying to read the article.

  Mr Smith chuckled. ‘This American Dream has been temporarily interrupted by this message from its sponsor.’

  ‘You mean, they interrupt church services for commercial messages?’

  ‘Yes, every few minutes the money lenders are allowed back into the temple in order to sell their wares.’

  ‘It is not a practice I can possibly approve of. I say, this is an astonishing article. The Reverend Henchman seems to be unusually vulnerable to feminine pulchritude.’

  ‘Well, you saw his wife. It’s almost understandable.’

  ‘I don’t like to be unkind. But I must say, she did look rather like one of nature’s aunts.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have said most of the things I have said since I met you again.’

  There was warmth between them.

  ‘Stand by!’ shouted the studio manager. ‘Transmission resumes in thirty seconds. Let’s have a devotional atmosphere now, folks. This is the last segment before the faith healings. All of you with sickness who registered before the show with either me or one of the assistants, be prepared to line up in the place indicated. Ten seconds. Let’s have a great show, folks, and don’t hold back with your applause. Joey! Take it away!’

  Henchman returned to the matter-of-fact style, the valleys of his emotional landscape. ‘Folks … some of you may think I have treated the Devil in a somewhat cavalier fashion …’

  ‘Well, I do for one!’ shouted Mr Smith, in his most grating voice.

  Henchman looked surprised for a moment.

  ‘I’m sincerely sorry to hear that, sir.’ And he broadened his approach for the audience to bear witness. ‘There’s a gentleman here thinks I have treated the Devil in a cavalier fashion.’

  There was a groundswell of ‘No way,’ ‘To hell with Satan,’ ‘Get thee behind me,’ and so on.

  The Reverend held out a hand indulgently, for silence. ‘There’s a reason I don’t want to spend more time with that old critter, Satan. You see, he may be right here in the church, although I gotta say, I saw him clearly the other night, and there’s no one answering to that description here today. But –’ (and his voice rose and trembled) ‘there’s one presence here you don’t have to identify … you just feel it in your sinner’s heart … My friend, God is here tonight …’

  ‘Did you hear that?’ whispered the Old Man.

  ‘He’s talking about God. He doesn’t mean you,’ cackled Mr Smith cattily.

  ‘God is here tonight. This is his house. These are his stained-glass walls … his home movies all around us … we his sinning children … He lives right here, with us … right in our hearts and minds … and let me tell you this, folks … If he were to decide to materialize here today … to turn up in any guise … he, in his infinite wisdom, chooseth … I’d recognize him instantly, and I’d say … on your behalf … Lord God, we greet thee in all simplicity, in awe of thine majesty, wrapped in the swaddling clothes of thy love … cosseted in the warmth of thy affection … and on behalf of the congregation of this consecrated Church of Many Colours on the Campus of the University of the Soul, in Henchman City, Arkansas, with its radio or TV outlets in upward of a hundred countries … we just say to thee the loveliest words in our language … Lord, welcome home …’

  There was a tumultuous ovation, and the Reverend was in tears again, moved by his own sentiments and the beauty of his words.

  The Old Man rose, and began climbing onto the stage. A security man stopped him.

  ‘You can’t go up there, old timer. Healing’s in the next segment.’

  ‘I have been recognized,’ said the Old Man.

  ‘What seems to be the trouble, Jerry?’ Henchman asked. He could not believe that an old man in flowing robes could constitute a menace, or a disruption of the programme. On the contrary, Henchman had a gut feeling that an old man with such childish openness on his face might even help the illusion of pervading sanctity.

  ‘You have recognized me,’ called the Old Man, with immense force, ‘and I am deeply touched.’

  Back at home, in West Virginia, Gontrand B. Harrison, the Deputy Director of the FBI, who was a fan of the Reverend Henchman, knocked over his highball when the Old Man appeared on the screen.

  ‘There’s the son of a bitch!’ he cried to the startled Mrs Harrison.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Switch on the video, will you honey? Clean tape. I’ll phone Gonella. Remember the Identikit photo I showed you?’

  ‘God?’

  ‘Right. That’s him. Arkansas. Hello, Mrs Gonella? Is Carmine at home? This is urgent.’

  Back in the church, Henchman, obeying his intuitions as a TV star, called on the Old Man to come up onto the stage.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he called out charmingly, believing that an old man like that might legitimately be timid.

  ‘Why should I be afraid after the welcome you have given me?’ called the Old Man in a voice which filled the church with sound, and even provided its own echo.

  ‘Give him a mike,’ said the Reverend.

  ‘He don’t need no mike,’ replied the sound man, intimidated.

  ‘I gave you a welcome? Who are you, Old Man?’

  ‘I have only been back on Earth for a few days. You are the first man to discover my identity in a public place and I congratulate you. I am God.’

  The Reverend looked desperate. He had miscalculated. If the Old Man had said he was Ellsworth W. Tidmarsh out of Boulder City, aged 95, he would have brought the house down, but God was the last kind of competition he needed. And you couldn’t very well ask God if he was a regular watcher of the Joey Henchman Hour.

  ‘Old Man, do you realize you are guilty of blasphemy?’

  ‘Oh, don’t spoil it all now,’ said the Old Man, pained. ‘You were doing so well …’

  ‘Shall I tell you how I know that you are not God?’

  ‘You cannot know that,’ cried the Old Man. ‘You said yourself, in whatever guise I chose to appear.’

  ‘I did indeed. You are right. I said that indeed. Those very words. I’d welcome God in whatever guise he chose to appear. After all, unlike Satan, I’ve never seen God. He could turn up here in any form, and while I’d recognize his sacred spirit, I couldn’t recognize him physically.’