by Bob Brewer
To: God c/o Scribe
cc Book of Records last entry
Supreme Being: I have the feeling that Gabriel had a hand in selecting the auxiliary staff for this mission. If that is the case, it should be noted that he did a fine job. I have found each of them a pleasure to work with. Host
To: Host. Both Gabriel and Michael were involved, and I to a lesser degree. God, cc etc. etc
To: Host. You’re welcome again. Can’t wait for the future to unfold. Gabe no cc
The Organized Ministry reconvened at eight-o-clock that evening in Atchinson’s basement. After a brief comparison of notes, Atchinson stood to address his fellow preachers. “Brothers, it looks to me like we’ve accomplished the feat, and that’s no small accomplishment if you ask me.” The happy fellowship applauded themselves with a long round of handclapping.
“You know, I’d forgotten the thrill of really pouring out the brimstone,” Father Coombs said, followed by a chuckle. “I believe I’ll do it more often. Good for the parishioner’s spirit.”
Deacon Collingsworth laughed. “Not to mention your own, eh, Coombs?” he said, bringing snickers from the rest of the group.
“We do it every Saturday,” said Brother Michael, edging into the fun.
Reverend Meade cleared his throat, and Michael dipped his eyes to the tabletop. “I certainly hope the message hit home,” Meade said. “I don’t know about the rest of you but that dinner cost me half of last month’s tithes.”
“I know,” Pastor Elroy voiced. “We fed over three hundred and I only have a hundred and sixty-two paying members.”
“Well, it’s done and over,” Father Coombs said. “I don’t think we have anything to worry about now. The trickery has been exposed for what it is. I have faith in that. There won’t be anymore trouble out of them.” He finished his statement and leaned back in his chair with all the confidence of his forty years of crisis handling showing on his face. The chair creaked, snapped and collapsed.
For the first time since the inception of the meetings, Brother Michael laughed. Father Coombs’ head popped up from the splintered remains of the chair, looking wide-eyed and bewildered, and Michael’s laughter increased. He was still trying to contain himself when Deacon Collingsworth slammed a bible into his belly. “Here,” the Deacon blared. “Read something appropriate to close the meeting.”
When Michael caught his breath, he reached up to take his glasses off so he could wipe the tears out of his eyes, but he was so shaky he fumbled and dropped the glasses. Without his spectacles he couldn’t read a word. He bent quickly to find them and was halfway under the table when Collingsworth reached down and picked them up. “I’ve got ‘em,” the Deacon said, and Michael rose up, table and all, to retrieve them. Atchinson’s chair came unglued and sent him to the floor.
Nine cups of coffee, three glasses of water and a bottle of club-soda slid off the opposite side of the table where, a second before, six preachers sat and Father Coombs was just getting to his knees. All seven of them got soaked with one liquid or the other and the club- soda bottle cold-cocked Atchinson.
Brother Michael grabbed his gold-framed glasses from Collingsworth’s hand and ran for the stairs. He and Deacon Collingsworth were the only two to escape with their dignity in tact.
The meeting was adjourned quickly without the benefit of prayer, leaving Atchinson, who was just getting to his feet, to clean up the mess.
The big plan of the Organized Ministry did meet with some measure of success, however, but not anywhere near what the clergy had hoped for. The fact that the light displays held such fascination for those who had witnessed them, and those who had experienced some form of healing, made it impossible to write it off so easily. The word on the street the next day was still abuzz with talk of the miracle and of the possibility that it was not over. Midvale Park had quickly become the center of attention for hundreds of people.
But there were those who were utterly opposed to the shameful acts of the man who dared to call himself Abraham. Big Sister Allecia was among this second group. The taxation protest was immediately put on hold and she set her sights on finishing the job the mealy-mouthed ministers had only started. She spent most of the morning lining up an army from the Unity of Women’s Guilds, and just before noon, backed by sixty-odd warriors, she marched on Captain Hedges’ bastion of deviltry to rout out the culprits.
“Leave it right there,” Allecia told her bucket brigade, “and you four stand watch on it.” The tar carriers set their pails down. Allecia waved an arm over her head and ended the arc by pointing to the door of the dining room. “Forward!” she commanded.
Arthur Hedges had returned from Windsor only an hour before. He had gone straight to his office and was poring over his mail when the guild burst into the hall. Sister Allecia’s strong voice rattled the walls with a vibrato equal to that of the Captain’s band. “We want Abraham!” she roared.
Peon jerked up from his dusting. A hundred-and-thirty fierce-looking eyes were blazing at him. He dropped the dust cloth and stood frozen at the piano he had been cleaning.
“Where is he?” Allecia roared again in a giant-like voice. She stood, hands on hips, hat cocked to one side over a crop of graying hair and face screwed up into a ferocious snarl.
“He’s n…n…n…not h…h…he…” Peon stuttered in misery. He just couldn’t get the sentence out.
“Well!” the big woman yelled impatiently, and stamped her size ten shoe hard against the floor.
Peon pointed a very shaky arm in the direction of the exit door at the other end of the room. Then he opened his mouth to try again, but the vocal cords weren’t cooperating. Allecia began tapping her foot. Peon finally found the courage to run. Like a shot he headed towards Hedges’ office.
Allecia’s loudness had startled Arthur and he was hurrying down the hallway when Peon came sliding around the corner. The orderly’s eyes blossomed widely just before he passed out at Hedges’ feet. “Leroy!” Hedges gasped, and knelt down to be of some kind of help.
Allecia’s big frame darkened the hallway. “Where’s Abraham?” she demanded again.
Hedges looked up at the big woman, then ignored her and checked to see if Peon was breathing.
“Are you going to answer me?” Allecia said gruffly.
Seeing that Leroy was okay, Hedges stood to face her and saw the regiment of women behind her. “You mean Abe Douglas?” he asked politely.
“Where is the worm?” Allecia growled, and took a step forward, not letting his superior height bother her.
In turn Hedges took a step to the rear. Peon groaned, and the Captain quickly moved his foot off the orderly’s hand. Peon sat up and put his fingers in his mouth, then seeing Allecia towering over him he plopped back down. “He’s not in here,” Hedges said, then stooped again to comfort his fallen aide.
Allecia turned to her army. “Hit it ladies,” she ordered, and the women fanned out to search the premises.
“What are you doing?” Hedges said in a raised voice as he started to rise.
Allecia placed a pudgy hand on the top of his head and pushed him back to the floor. “We figured you’d try to hide him,” she said. “And we came prepared to handle it, so just sit there and ask God to forgive you.”
Hedges shook his head in confusion. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, lady. Abe’s a kind and decent man.”
“Just shut up,” Allecia hissed.
Technically the captain hadn’t lied when he failed to tell Sister Allecia that Abe and Shorty were working across the alley in the Thrift store. He had planned to send Leroy over to relieve them as soon as he finished going through the mail. Then Allecia showed up.
The fruitless search ended in a few minutes when a squadron of Allecia’s women high-stepped down from the sleeping room holding their noses. “Not a trace,” one of them reported. Allecia gave out a deep, disgusted growl. Without another word she wheeled around, and
roughly pushing her troops aside, marched to the entry door.
Hedges quickly patted Peon’s face. When Peon opened an eye, Hedges said, “Their gone. I’ll be right back.” He raced to the kitchen and through the door to the alleyway. “You guys have got to get out of here, now!” he shouted as soon as he got inside the receiving room.
Abe and Shorty came running from the front of the store. “Is the place on fire?” Shorty asked.
“Worse than that,” Hedges answered, pulling at Abe’s arm and leading him to the back door. “I think you fellows are in some kind of trouble with a bunch of irate women. They’re going to be here any minute.” He unlocked the door and pushed them outside. “Stay out of sight and don’t come back for a couple of hours. I’ll try to get to the bottom of this for you,” he said, and closed the door.
The Captain’s words and actions had Abe and Shorty at a complete loss. “What’s he talking about?” Abe said. “You know something I don’t?”
“Me?” Shorty exclaimed.
“Well, I don’t know any women,” Abe said.
“And ya think I do? We haven’t been outta each others sight in two weeks or more,” Shorty said, uncomfortably. “Let’s be gettin’ ourselves outta here and talk about it somewheres else.”
The only place they knew that might be safe was the old bowling alley. With Horace right behind them, they headed there at a run then ducked under the loose board to hole up while they tried to figure out what was going on.
News of the controversial Midvale Miracle had telegraphed quickly to the nearby towns. Whether real or hoax the story had an air of mystery about it that was sure to captivate an audience. Rayford Manson, owner and editor-in-chief of the Windsor Chronograph, recognized the opportunity of a lifetime and grabbed onto it. He called his nephew, Roland Thompson, into the office. Roland wasn’t the best of reporters, but he was family. Rayford sat him down and hovered over him like a pugnacious bantam hen. “Now, Roland, I’m putting this in your hands. I want you to get over there quick, and don’t get scooped this time, you hear me? This is Pulitzer stuff, boy, nothing to mess around with, and I don’t mean for anybody beat us to it. Now get out of here and go make your mama proud.”
Along with hundreds of devout pilgrims, curiosity seekers and sightseers in general, Roland hit the road to Midvale, armed with a pocketful of pencils and a mind swimming with ideas of how to phrase his prize acceptance speech. Little did he or any of his fellow travelers know that they were entering the battle zone of a small-scale rebellion; mostly of a verbal nature, but nevertheless a heated war of differences between the backers of the Organized Ministry and the followers of Abraham, as they now called themselves. Although the outsiders may have started their trek innocently enough, that situation was promptly altered as soon as they crossed into Midvale’s city limits.
The two opposing camps of believers had set up separate information booths, one on either side of the city park’s archway, and had decorated them with hastily printed banners proclaiming their stance. “God Is Here,” read one banner while the other stated, “Free Ministry, Hear the Truth.” People were everywhere.
Munroe Washington had torn down a fence and turned his cow pasture across the highway into a $10.00 a day parking lot. Munroe was eighty-two years old and normally a crotchety old cuss but today he was all smiles as he collected his rewards and directed traffic around the side of his dilapidated hay barn. Down the road, others had followed Munroe’s lead, and all of them were prospering by the sudden improvement in tourism.
While having so many people in town at one time was a Godsend to the local entrepreneurs, it was rapidly becoming a deep source of torment for Mayor Junior Williams. He was trapped in the position of having to make a choice, a situation he had spent the better part of his adult life trying to avoid. He was, after all, a politician, and he was doing his best not to sweat as Father Coombs sat across from him pointedly asking for his support of the ministry’s stand. He wanted Junior to revoke the park-use permit his people had issued to Abraham Douglas and Thomas McDougal. "I just don't know how I can do that, Father," Junior said. “It’d look bad for the city if we went back now and told ‘em we changed our minds. And really, Father, they haven’t broken any laws that I know of.”
“They’re criminals, Junior!” Coombs said emphatically.
“Now, Roy, I mean Father,” Junior said, holding up a hand, “how do you know that?”
Coombs squinted then raised an eyebrow. “The way you’re talking, Junior, sounds to me like maybe you believe all this trash about the Lord making personal appearances. Do you?”
Junior wiggled in his chair and reached for a tissue. “I didn’t say that, Roy, I mean Father.”
“Oh, just cut the malarkey, Junior,” Coombs said. “Just call me Roy and get on with it.”
Junior blew his nose. “Okay, Roy. You know my niece, Hattie?”
“Of course I do,” Coombs said, lowering his gaze. He knew Hattie, and he knew it was his fault she had banged up her knee on the church bus. If he had listened to her and had the door fixed when she told him it was broken she would have never fallen trying to open it. She stopped going to his church right after that and he hadn’t seen her since. “How is she?” he asked.
“That’s my point, Roy, she’s fine. Walks as good as you or me, and she says the Lord healed her.”
Coombs looked back up and gave the Mayor a thin smile. “That doesn’t surprise me, Junior. She’s been on our prayer list for three months now. Sometimes these things take a while. So, listen, are you with us or not?”
Junior shrugged slightly. “Well, to be perfectly honest with you, Roy, I’m going to have to try to stay neutral on this. You know, the phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning. We’ve got a lot of merchants wanting to set up at the park, and people wondering if it’d be okay to rent out rooms and such. And you know as well as I do that the town’s not all that well off right now. I guess what I’m saying, Roy, is that we need this income, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.”
Father Coombs stood. “So, you’re going to stand with them?”
“No, Roy, I’m not. I’m just trying to save my town. I figure if they're thieves like you say they are, they'll slip up and be their own downfall. On the other hand, if they’re really on the level then we’ve all been blessed beyond our wildest imaginations.”
“They’re robbing the people blind, Junior!” said Coombs, leaning over the front of the Mayor’s desk. “And where do you think all that money’s going? In our merchant’s pockets, in the town treasury? We’ve got to stop them now or all that cash is gone. Where’s that going to leave the town? So, you can sit there and play the politician if you want to, but I’m going to put a halt to it. Rest assured of that, Junior.” On that note, Father Coombs left to go to his own office to call in some reinforcements. He was surprised when he got there that the Archdeacon from Windsor had already left three urgent messages for him. “Don’t do anything,” the last message ordered. “The Bishops and I will be there late this afternoon.”
As Big Sister Allecia was conducting a house-to-house search and Father Coombs was making arrangements for the visiting dignitaries, Abe and Shorty were sitting in the dark bowling alley discussing the possibility of calling on the Lord to let them off the hook. They had seen the sister and her tar-bucket brigade march by the deserted building twice and had finally put the puzzle of Hedges’ warning together. “They mean to tar and feather us!” Abe said, hardly able to believe what he saw the second time the group passed. “I thought that was just something you read about in comic books!”
Shorty edged up to him and moved the board out a little to see for himself. “I wish me old eyes were a little better,” he said, straining to get a glimpse of the tar buckets. “Are ya certain that’s what it is?”
Abe closed the board with a quick hand. “Sure, I’m sure.”
Shorty frowne
d. “Oh, they wouldn’t be doin’ that. The Lord’d never stand fer it. Would He?”
“It’s all those preacher’s doings, you know?” Abe answered. “We ought to go have a talk with them. Tell them that we didn’t ask for this, and maybe the Lord would show them that we’re telling the truth.”
Shorty scooted away from the opening. “Ya know, Mr. Douglas, I’ve never been much on fightin’, but I ain’t one fer backin’ down either. Maybe that’s why the Lord put us two together in the first place. And right now I’m thinkin’ if the Lord had wanted us to give in to them preachers He would have seen to it the other night on His own.”
“You’re right, Mr. McDougal,” Abe said, after a moment’s reflection. “That’s what He would have done.” He stopped to scratch his head and put the idea to thought. “I guess since He didn’t take care of it, Mr. McDougal, that means it’s all up to us, now.”
“Are ya sayin’ we oughta go out there and face the music?”
“I suppose I am,” Abe said. “We can’t stay hiding out forever, can we? And I promised those people we’d be there tonight.”
Shorty slapped him lightly on the back. “Well, Mr. Douglas, if I have anything to do with it, ya won’t be lettin’ ‘em down. Come on, let’s be gettin’ outta this dungeon.”
Abe nodded, and they cautiously slid back the loose board and crawled out of the old building. There was no one in sight. “We’re going to need a change of clothes before the meeting,” said Abe as he took the lead and put them on course to the Salvation Army Center.
Roland Thompson had just finished a late lunch at Mama Mia’s café and was sipping a final cup of coffee when one of the locals seated next to him shouted, “That’s him!” It was going on five o’clock, and Thompson had been following Sister Allecia ever since he got into town hoping to find and talk to Abraham. He swung around on his stool and looked through the window. Across the street he saw a tallish fellow, a shortish fellow and a reddish mongrel, all of them looking weary and bedraggled as they plodded up the street. “That’s Abraham?” he asked the local. The guy nodded. Thompson threw a ten-dollar bill on the counter and ran out of the café.
Holding his hat down with one hand and steadying a camera in the other, he dashed out into the street without looking. Amid a maelstrom of honking horns, screeching tires and blue smoke he somehow escaped being killed and panted up to the unlikely looking prophets. “Mr. Douglas?” he breathed hard into Shorty’s face.
The little man stepped back and fanned the air. “Whew!,” he gasped. “Ya’ve got yerself a real problem there, lad.”
“Sorry,” the reporter mouthed as he fumbled through his jacket pocket. He took out a package of breath mints and popped a couple of them into his mouth. “Sorry. I just had a hamburger.” He sucked on the mints just long enough to get them good and wet, then he continued. “Now, Mr. Douglas…”
“That’s much better,” Shorty interrupted him. “But I’m McDougal.” He motioned a thumb towards Abe. “He’s yer man.”
“How do you do,” Abe said, and held out a grimy hand. Crawling around in the dust of the old bowling alley all day had left its residue all over him.
Thompson eyed the offered hand for a moment then looked at his own. A splotch of mustard covered its palm. He shrugged slightly then grasped Abe’s hand and shook it. “I’m Roland Thompson of the Windsor Chronograph, Mr. Douglas.”
Shorty’s eyebrows rose. “All the way up from Windsor, are ya?”
Roland gave them a nod. “We heard about your miracle yesterday,” he said. Then he leaned over and asked Abe in a confidential tone, “Is this thing with God on the level?” Abe dropped his hand and glared at him. “No offense, Mr. Douglas,” Thompson said quickly. “It’s just that it seems to me that the town’s pretty much convinced that you’re trying to pull off a scam of some sort. I’d just like to get your side of the story.”
Shorty lowered his brushy eyebrows and shot a look at Thompson that made the reporter flinch. “Fer one thing, it ain’t no story, and fer another, if yer as smart as yer dressed, you’ll be askin’ the Lord to fergive ya fer what ya just said.”
Thompson looked around at the audience that had gathered. They were silent, staring at him, waiting for his retort if there was going to be one. He shrugged. “I was only passing on what I’ve heard since I got to town. It’s not my personal opinion. I mean, I don’t know one way or the other.”
Abe gave him a quick lip-smile. “Then maybe you ought to come down to the park about seven-thirty tonight and see for yourself,” he said, taking Shorty’s arm. “We’ve got to be going, Mr. McDougal.”
Roland opened his mouth, but the Irishman shushed him. “Huh-uh, remember the Lord’s listen’ in.” With that the little man and Abe continued their walk towards the Salvation Army Center.
But the walk was short-lived. The wrath of Big Sister Allecia and her band of marauders awaited them half a block away. They came face to face in front of the engine-four fire station.
During the strenuous all day march Allecia had lost, for one reason or the other, the bulk of her army. The nine die-hards left was a frizzled image of when they began; down to one pail of roofing cement, no feathers, hair limp and scraggly, and carrying their shoes, the gusto gone. Only the big sister had the hungry look of vengeance in her eyes. When she spied Abe and Shorty she bellowed like a hurt heifer. “You sniveling, lowlife, lily-hearted snakes! It’s about time you showed yourselves.”
Roland Thompson ran the last several yards with pencil and pad in hand to record the massacre. He had waited all day for the inevitable confrontation that was sure to put the Pulitzer in his pocket, and as if fate was on his side, not one other reporter was there.
Abe simply stared at her, but the Irishman bristled. He had to tilt his head up to look at her face. “That’s an awful set of fangs ya have. And yer pipes could use some cleanin’,” he said, defiantly.
“Fasten your lip, runt,” she said, furling her face into a scowl.
“You might do well to fasten your own,” said Abe in a calm voice that caused the heavy woman to hesitate and eye him.
“You tell him, Sister,” one of her group called halfheartedly. But it was enough to egg her on.
Allecia jerked her nerve back. “Douglas, we want you and this hoodlum out of our town. We’re not going to stand for another minute of it. Right, ladies?” Her team agreed with a bit of light chatter.
Abe shook his head. “What you all want isn’t any concern of mine,” he said, speaking slowly and positively. “I take orders from the Lord, and He wants me here.”
“Ha!” Allecia laughed and threw her head back. “What would you know about the Lord, Satan?”
Shorty’s eyes widened. “Ya’d better be askin’ fer fergiveness fer that one,” he said quickly, and shook a finger at her. “The Lord’ll only allow a certain amount of blasphemy, ya know?”
“That’s right,” Abe agreed. “And I think you might have just passed the limit. So, why don’t you all just go on about your business and let us get on with ours?” Abe took a step to go around her, but she threw her hands up to block him.
“You aren’t hearing me, Douglas. Our business is to remove you, bodily if necessary. And we mean to do it.” She got some ‘amens’ from her band that prompted her to reach a hand towards Abe.
“You lay a bloody hand on him,” Shorty yelled at her, “and the Lord’ll …” His threat was cut short by the loud, grating sound of the fire station’s door rolling open. The red light above the door switched on and the massive front bumper of a fire engine started inching out. The driver touched off the siren and Allecia’s followers screamed. In seconds, Allecia was left alone and dazed by everything going wrong.
Roland Thompson put his pad away and aimed his camera at Abe. “Could you look this way for a second, Mr. Douglas?” he asked, but Abe held up a hand.
“We need to get cleaned up,” Abe
said. “Maybe tonight.” Bypassing the stunned Sister Allecia, he called Horace, and the three of them resumed their walk.
“You know, Mr. McDougal,” Abe said as they got beyond Thompson’s and Allecia’s earshot, “you really shouldn’t be using our position with the Lord to threaten people.”
“Ya mean what I was about to say to that awful lookin’ witch back there?”
“Yep.”
“Well, bein’ honest, it wasn’t really what ya’d call a threat, Mr. Douglas. What I was goin’ to say was the Lord’d not take kindly to her if she did ya any harm. That’s not what I wanted to be sayin’ to her, mind ya. If I had had me own way I’da told her to…”
Abe stopped him. “I don’t want to know, Mr. McDougal,” he said quickly, and picked up the pace. “We need to hurry up and get ready for the meeting.”