Stone Angel

by Carol O’Connell

  Darlene was also smiling. “Tom called the observatory. He was thinking Ira might’ve seen a satellite or a comet. But they told him a dark star had moved across the face of a bright one and hid its light.”

  Charles nodded. The eclipse would have been only hours long, but atmospheric conditions could have obscured the star for several days. So the sheriff had used that knowledge to put on an elaborate magic show for Ira and Kathy.

  “It was called Algos,” said Darlene.

  “But we call it Ira’s star.” Betty wagged one finger to end her story with a flourish. “And that old fool Milton Hamlin was dead within the year,” she said, as if this might be a fitting penalty for humiliating a small child.

  CHAPTER 12

  His way was brightly lit by headlights from a long line of cars stretching from the highway to the fairgrounds. Though it had been a bit of a hike from Henry Roth’s house, Charles was making better progress than the traffic on wheels. Always ahead of him was the lure of the giant glowing sign, screaming in neon, ‘MIRACLES FOR SALE,’ and casting its red light on the canvas panels of the circus tent.

  He passed the dirt parking lot, already filled to capacity, and entered a crowd of people walking toward the tent. A woman shrieked and pointed up to the center pole.

  A ball of fire circled over the tent in the trajectory of a lost and disoriented shooting star. Charles recognized the illusion from his cousin’s store of magic tricks. Squinting, he could just make out the guide wire in the wake of the flames.

  He remembered a visit to another evangelist’s performance in the different seasons of childhood and summer. One warm night, on an open prairie, Cousin Max had given away the details of this trick to repay the hospitality of an aging minister on the tent-show circuit.

  Charles’s smile was bittersweet.

  So Max’s illusion had been passed along through the years, handed down from showman to showman. Would he find other vestiges of Max inside the tent?

  As he reached the wide entrance, a young man, no more than five feet tall, pressed a sheet of paper into his hand. Charles accepted it with a thank you. It was a schedule of New Church seminars under the headline of Financial Miracles,‘ and it was printed on paper the color of money.

  He folded the sheet into his suitcoat pocket and paid more attention to the smaller man. He could not miss the Laurie resemblance in this young face, but that was a common thing in Owltown. The little man was outstanding for his shoes, which were miles too big for him, his overlarge shirt and baggy, rolled-up pants. The ensemble reminded him of the grab bag mix of clothing worn by New York’s homeless people.

  Charles held out his front-row pass. The young man seemed mildly annoyed, for his job was handing out papers – not receiving any. His solution to the problem was to ignore it as he handed a green sheet to another man, and then another. But all the while, Charles’s pass continued to dangle in the air just in front of him. “Excuse me?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the young man, shoulders sagging a bit in resignation, for this problem showed no signs of going away.

  Charles handed over his pass, leaving the man no choice but to accept it. “Malcolm told me to give this to someone at the entrance.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that, sir.” He called out, “Uncle Ray!”

  Another Laurie face approached them. This was a man with the graying hair and wrinkles of late fifties. “What’s the problem, Jimmy?”

  Jimmy handed him the pass, and now the older man turned to Charles. “Well, you must be Mr. Butler.” Ray Laurie’s smile promised everlasting friendship, but it dimmed as he turned on Jimmy. “You should’ve taken Mr. Butler right in and seated him.”

  Now the older man grasped Charles’s arm and gestured toward the entrance. “You’ll have to excuse Jimmy. We never give him anything too complicated. He has trouble concentrating.”

  Charles found that odd, for the younger man’s face showed more signs of intelligence than his uncle’s placid expression and sluggish eyes.

  Ray Laurie introduced himself as Babe’s brother.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” said Charles.

  Ray Laurie’s eyes blanked for the time it took to wonder what loss that might be. When at last he understood, he smiled and nodded. “If you’ll just follow me?”

  Charles was escorted to a front-row seat cordoned off with a velvet rope and a reserved sign. His view of the stage would have a slightly sidelong angle, and Ray Laurie hoped Charles didn’t mind.

  “Not at all.” Charles had to shout to be heard above the crowd. There must be a thousand people already seated, and perhaps twice that many outside, awaiting admission. “So will Malcolm be carrying on with his brother’s ministry?”

  “Well, Mal was the preacher right along, Mr. Butler. Now Babe was a real big attraction, what with his psychic predictions and healing power – I wouldn’t take that away from him. But Malcolm always did the real preaching. He’s a thing to behold.”

  Charles was staring up at the stage when a mass of red drape was pulled away from the large board at the rear.

  “Now that’s new,” said Ray Laurie, pointing up to the enormous photograph of the late Babe Laurie. The image was bigger than a highway billboard. “You would not believe what it cost to have that made up on a rush order. But Mal wanted to do up the memorial service with style. I think Babe would’ve liked it a lot.”

  Charles had already guessed that this giant portrait was not the standard fixture. From his vantage point to the side, he could see a portion of the older prop. All that was visible was the large bloodied hand of Christ nailed to the arm of a giant crucifix, and now displaced by the full-color blowup of Babe’s face. New icons for old.

  The vacant seats were filling quickly as an army of people poured through the large opening in the canvas and filed into the rows of folding chairs.

  Vendors with bright orange vests moved among the faithful, loudly hawking souvenirs and charms, shouting to be heard above the restless babble. For fifty dollars, one could buy a lock of Babe Laurie’s hair. The bargain price of five dollars would buy a severed bird’s foot on a key chain to protect a body from his enemies. For that same price, small feathered bags of herbs would cure ills from arthritis to cancer. For a few dollars more, one could have bits of quartz shaped like pyramids, blessed by Babe Laurie himself, and guaranteed to hasten miracles of all kinds. A beer was four dollars, a hot dog was three. And here, brothers and sisters, was the best bargain in the offering, a bit of heaven itself – a pink cloud of cotton candy, swirling on a paper cone, could be had for two – count ‘em – only two dollars.

  And now, with a little prompting from the barking men in the orange vests, the crowd began to chant a mantra.

  “Babe, Babe, Babe!”

  A gospel choir, dressed in deep purple robes and a mix of dark and light skin, assembled beneath the giant portrait and, a cappella, they sang to the chanting crowd, which took the part of a deafening, rhythmic chorus.

  “Babe, Babe!”

  “Oh, when the sa-a-a-a-ints – ”

  “Babe, Babe!”

  “ – come marching i-i-i-n – ”

  “Babe! Babe!”

  “ – Oh, when the saints come ma-a-a-rching in – ”

  “Babe, Babe, Babe!”

  The music of a Dixieland band preceded the musicians, who now marched onto the stage and took their place beside the choir, displacing the chants with rousing trumpets, one clarinet and a trombone. The crowd’s chanting dissolved into cheers and applause. The rhythm of the hand-clapping became a single clap of thunder. The brass sparkled, and the horns hit their highest notes.

  The music ended before the song was done, heightening anticipation as the houselights dimmed. One spotlight illuminated a small circle on the billboard at the rear of the stage. The crowd screamed and clapped. The circle of light grew in size and intensity until it was a burning sun.

  Too bright. Charles looked away for a moment, and then he turned back with the
‘oh’s and ’ah’s of the crowd to behold a petty miracle made of dry ice and boiling water, as a slow crawl of ground fog rolled across the stage.

  And now Malcolm Laurie appeared at the center of the bright circle. His costume had more spangles than a matador’s suit of lights. The low boil of stage fog obscured his legs below the knees as he moved forward in the smooth glide of an artful dancer, and one could believe his feet were not touching the floor. The spotlight dimmed, but Malcolm glittered and gleamed. Smiling a row of dazzling white teeth, he raised his hand for silence. The screams died out in a sigh breathed round the tent.

  The litany began, amplified by a wireless microphone and accompanied by the soft croon of the choir. “Brothers and sisters, are you tired of being poor? Say, amen!”

  “Amen!” the crowd yelled.

  “Are you tired of your misery? Say amen!”

  “Amen!”

  “I know what you’re wondering, brothers and sisters. Why? you ask, oh why has Babe Laurie died and forsaken you?”

  The light blazed up in high brilliance. When it blacked out, Malcolm was gone.

  Now the spotlight reappeared closer to the front of the stage, and Malcolm came walking out of the light. “Babe is not gone. He is here! My brother is with me. He is with all of us tonight.”

  His hands reached out to the crowd, his fingers trembling, his voice soft as a lover’s. “Can you feel it? Can you feel his love? Open your hearts wide and hear me. I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my love.” He strutted from one end of the stage to the other, gazing over the flock, leaving the impression that he had made a profound connection with every pair of eyes.

  “My beloved put his hand by the hole of the door.” Malcolm’s hand went to his heart as he sank down on one knee. “And I rose up to open to my beloved.” Malcolm stood up slowly. “My hands and my fingers dripped with sweet-smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock.” His voice was softer, lower, saying, “I opened to my beloved.” He threw out his hands as though to embrace them all. “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me: he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.”

  Charles recognized the more erotic lines from The Song of Solomon, more or less intact, with verses out of order. Malcolm stole from the best as well as the least. Charles turned to an elderly woman seated in the row behind him. Her eyes were trained on the evangelist as though he were her lover. And of course, he was.

  Malcolm glistened with sweat and sparkled with light. His honeyed voice rolled over the crowd. The preacher was giving the audience holy sanctioned sex. He was reaching out to all of them, men and women alike, stroking them with his eyes, his voice, touching all the soft places and exciting them to a roar of “Amen!” He was the image of a rock star, raw sensuality in the service of the Lord.

  “Brothers and sisters!” Malcolm cried out. “I can feel Babe inside of me, filling my body with the fluid of love, the power of God Almighty. I got the power!” One closed fist shot out, angling toward heaven.

  “Amen!” screamed the crowd with renewed fervor.

  Charles stared up at the giant portrait and listened to them intoning the name of Babe, over and over, as their hands shot out and pulled back, again and again, in mimicry of Malcolm.

  So this was the New Church, borrowing a bit from the Bible, a bit from Hitler.

  Charming.

  Malcolm was handed a glass pitcher and a crystal goblet. He poured a clear stream of water into the goblet, but the crystal vessel filled with rich red liquid, and a thousand people gasped for breath.

  Malcolm had dared to turn the water into wine.

  Charles had seen this done before, but never in religious context. The colored crystals had been hidden at the bottom of the wineglass in that portion obscured by the hand.

  The man drank deeply, and then turned his back on the crowd as he looked up to the monster image of his brother. The glass went crashing to the floor. His arms rose in the crucifixion pose and his body began to shake with convulsions. The crowd was hushed. When Malcolm turned around again, he was altered in every way. His mouth was larger, pouting more lower lip, eyes wider, hair slicked back with sweat, and there was a cruelty in this new arrangement of his features.

  He strutted from one end of the stage to the other, cock of the walk with the suggestion of a limp. At center stage, he ended his pacing. His jaw jutted out as he drew his body up, puffed out his chest, and arrogance exuded from every sweating pore of skin. His eyes were wild as he staggered to the rear of the stage and back again to the edge. His hands shot out in a gesture of supplication. And then, every spangle on the suit of lights left its own bright track in the air as he writhed and jerked his body in spasms.

  “It’s Babe!” screamed a man in the front row. All about the tent was the sudden intake of breath, and then the release of a soft sigh. Utter silence now, all eyes were on the stage. The multitude was mesmerized by the resurrection and the light.

  And now, abruptly, rudely, the show moved on to borrow a bit from the legendary P. T. Barnum, a more flamboyant showman than God. The professional geeks were being brought out on the stage: a woman whose arms flew about in an uncontrollable palsy and a man who walked on his hands and dragged his legs behind him. All that was missing was the dog-faced boy and the bearded lady. The band played them onto the stage, limping, crawling, shaking violently. The reincarnation of Babe Laurie laid his hands on them one by one, and then the band played again as the halt and lame danced off stage, healed and whole.

  When the fakirs were gone, the less dramatic but genuine ailments came out of the crowd, imploring Malcolm to heal them. One by one, they were brought center stage. Malcolm pressed his hand to the forehead of a man supported by two canes. The man fell backward into the waiting arms of the body catchers. Malcolm dramatically broke the canes across one raised leg, and then the man limped back to his seat, un-healed and falling once before he reached the chair. No one noticed, no one cared. All eyes were riveted on the stage.

  Then began the straggle of elderly arthritics, who seemed genuinely shocked when Malcolm laid his hands on their heads, compelling them to be healed in the name of Babe Laurie. One of Malcolm’s hands went to the small of an elderly woman’s back. He pressed on her forehead and she flew backward to the arms of the catchers as though propelled by lightning. She made her way down the stairs in shock, stunned and weaving from the assault. But her expression might be taken for exaltation, for her eyes were wide and brimmed with tears of pain.

  Done with minor wonders, the program moved upscale to the collective miracle – each heart’s desire – preceded by collection plates.

  “Do you believe?” Malcolm had shed his brother’s skin to pace the stage with his own charisma. “Say, amen.”

  “Amen!”

  “Then give all that you have. Every dollar in your wallet, every dime in your pockets. Give everything you have and you shall receive more than all your gifts combined. Do you want a miracle? Say amen.”

  “Amen!”

  Piles of cash were growing in the plates. People in the first row were indeed emptying their wallets as they chanted the name of Babe and fixed their eyes on his billboard image. They prayed to Babe now. He was a god, and Malcolm was his priest on earth.

  “It’s time to demonstrate your faith. Do you want to buy a miracle?”

  “Amen!”

  “Then empty those wallets. Give no thought of the morrow.”

  As Charles recalled, Christ had said this last phrase to Judas, but only to deter him from passing the hat at a similar gathering.

  “Let go of that cash, and it will come back to you a hundredfold and then some. You will live in the light of faith and every good thing in life will be yours. I guarantee it. In proportion to your faith, you will receive your heart’s desire.”

  Now Charles had found the escape clause in the warranty of Malcolm’s c
ovenant. If the miracle did not occur, then the petitioner was obviously lacking in devotion and belief. Not Malcolm’s fault, and no refund for those of little faith.

  “I want you to dig in those pockets and come up with all your bills and coins. This is where it begins. If you lack the faith, you have wasted your time here. Open those wallets and pour your faith into those collection plates for God’s work. As we help one another, we participate in the flow, and it flows right on back to us. It’s a holy circle, you cannot stop it, you cannot prevent it from flowing back to you – so long as you believe. You must demonstrate your faith. You must walk out into the night with nothing but your faith. Say, amen!”

  “Amen!”

  “You women!” He stomped his foot on the stage. “Empty out those purses. I say dig for that money. You don’t want to get home and discover that you have held back a single coin. Your faith will surely crumble to dust, and you will be dogged by the misery of this lost chance for all your days.”

  Charles looked araund him. Well, the curse was a nice touch. Two seats away in the third row, a formerly reticent woman was digging deeper in her bag. And to his left, and one chair down the second row, another woman had emptied the contents of her purse into her lap. Tissues and gum wrappers spilled to the floor. Charles stared at the store of pharmacy bottles in the spread apron of her skirt. Her hands were malformed, ugly knots of flesh. She was young for such an advanced case of arthritis – such desperation.

  He looked into the faces of the surrounding believers. Hunger was here, an ocean of it. People all around him were rising to their feet and groaning with the power flowing through them in Babe Laurie’s name. They shouted their amens, and Charles felt an electrical current which shocked him and hooked him up to his fellow man, as surely as if they had all been touched by the same jolt of Saint Elmo’s fire.

  “Do you believe?”

  And the crowd roared with one voice, “I believe!” screaming as one devout petitioner with one desire.