by Mick Farren
"And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as of the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone."
Carlisle did not have a clue how the effects were achieved, but as the metallic noise grew louder and louder, the black shapes were in among the audience. White, skeletal forms appeared in the middle of them, indistinct but brandishing weapons, topped by the faces of screaming skulls. The crowd was reacting again. Carlisle started to realize that what Arlen Proverb was really providing was just a grand version of old-fashioned horror-movie grab and scream. It was a rollercoaster ride of fright-night biblical effects, and the crowd was more than happy to throw itself into it with a vengeance. It was all part of the show and probably provided those poor dumb bastards with more genuine thrills and spills than they had experienced all year. Carlisle's real worry was that since this was not merely an old-time honor show but something that touched psyches heavily dosed with years of religious mania, the spills might spill over into a full-blown bout of mass psychosis. He did not want to be officiating at a riot.
The metal noise had reached pain threshold. It was as if a dozen old-fashioned railroad trains were screaming through the place with their throttles wide open, while on board a barbarian horde was howling in unison and beating on steel shields. The vague skeletal shapes were much more clearly defined, demon holograms stalking the aisles and putting the very real fear of eternal damnation into the hearts of the crowd. Above it all, Proverb, protected by his aura, continued to rant.
"By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths… And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk."
An indistinct, shifting demon face was projected onto the backdrop behind Proverb. It bore a definite resemblance to Larry Faithful.
"Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, not of their fornication, nor of their thefts."
At the last ringing word, everything stopped with breathtaking suddenness. The interior of the Garden was full of ringing silence and pitch oppressive black.
After three seconds, there was a blinding white flash, and Proverb's voice rang out like a roll of thunder.
"I bring you tidings of great joy that shall be to all people. "
The auditorium was filled with a golden light. Proverb was back down on the stage, no longer raised up on the elevated platform. Carlisle felt unnaturally good. He was at peace. He slowly looked around. Everyone in the place was beaming with brotherly love.
Carlisle quickly let out his breath. "Goddamn it to hell."
A couple of nearby people looked at him in amazement. He glared back at them, and they looked away. The good feeling had abruptly fallen off. Proverb was using some sort of highspeed visual hypnotic, an industrial version of the Jesus Wave. With this crowd, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Over half of them were jelloed on the pocket-size A-wave already. Carlisle resented the indiscriminate use of mass mood movers. People were crazy enough as it was. For his own part, he objected to the intrusion on his privacy. He did not like anyone modifying his mind without his express permission. Ironically, the hypnotic was probably now heightening his irritation. Once one had fought the initial euphoria, the tendency was to plummet to the basement of ill temper.
A telescopic catwalk was extending down the central aisle, and Proverb was moving onto it. He was actually going out into the crowd. If a hitter was waiting there, Proverb's move was an open invitation. Every couple of paces he would pause and acknowledge some individual or group in the audience. He began handing out silk scarves. He seemed to be Dulling scarves out of the high collar of his spangled costume as if it were a magic act. It was practically an Elvi ceremony. Between scarves, he would reach out and grasp the hands that were stretched up to him. He dropped to one knee and prayed to selected knots of people.
When he came to the end of the catwalk, he surveyed the crowd and slowly raised his hands. "Oh, my friends, I do bring you tidings of great joy and they shall be to all people. Very, very great joy."
Kline
Deacon Booth gripped a large glass of cognac and regarded the small, spotlit figure of Arlen Proverb with a bleak expression. "I think tonight he may finally go too far."
Longstreet, who was standing next to him, raised a questioning eyebrow. "It depends what you mean by too far."
"Far enough so we can finally wrap him with a full-scale, watertight heresy indictment."
"Is there such a thing as a watertight heresy indictment? Isn't it all a matter of theological interpretation?"
"There's a line beyond which interpretation no longer applies. That's why we've given this one so much rope."
Booth gave Longstreet a look that seemed to indicate he was another one who had had more than enough rope.
The smart cynical elite in the VIP lounge watched the performance with as much rapt attention as any of the common believers on the floor of the Garden, but their motivations were very different. The celebrities, the tycoons, and the city officials, who were staring through the panoramatic glass that looked out over the whole arena or else watching the banks of monitors that were mounted at strategic points all around the room, had come to see what amounted to an advanced freakshow. They accepted champagne from the circulating waiters and laughed at the excesses of both performer and audience.
"He is good. He really does have them in the palm of his hand."
"It's not hard to have morons in the palm of his hand. I mean, just look at them. They'd believe anything."
"He's also spending a fortune on special effects."
"He is good, though. He must be good to do what he does and have stayed out of a camp for this long."
"I don't think Proverb has anything to worry about. Faithful's afraid of him and his following."
"For God's sake, keep your voice down."
The last speaker, a well-fed, agribusiness executive in a quilted burgundy tuxedo, looked around nervously. There were also a great many senior deacons in the VIP lounge. They were not there to see a freakshow – they were looking for an excuse. They made absolutely no secret that they were there to see Proverb publicly nail his own coffin. The way things stood in the aftermath of the mess on Fifteenth Street and the continuing embarrassment of the Lefthand Path running loose, the deacons obviously needed the kind of spectacular arrest and show trial that the taking down of Proverb would provide. It went deeper than that, however. The agribusiness executive's companion was right. Faithful was afraid of Arlen Proverb, as were all of the hierarchy. He was an unpredictable maverick, and there was no place for mavericks in their brave new world. That, on the other hand, did not stop them looking around at the other guests as if speculating what their long-term fate might be. It was an old deacon trick, but that did not stop it from striking cold fear into anyone who faced one of those cold stares.
Cynthia Kline herself was close to cold fear. She had arrived, once again, as Longstreet's protegee and had been very much treated as such – she had been largely ignored. He had introduced her to a couple of people, but they had been singularly uninterested in her claim to fame. There was no way that she could compete with what was going on on the stage. If she had had less brain and more ego, she might have put it down to the much more conservative uniform that Longstreet had chosen for the night's outing. Cynthia, though, was smart enough to realize that she was already becoming yesterday's news, and that her moment of phony glory was into its final flare. The realization produced mixed feelings. There was a certain relief that she would soon be allowed to sink back into her previous covert anonymity, but it was tempered by a regret that she would no longer be in the public eye. There had
been a certain exhilaration to being the center of attention.
In the VIP lounge at Madison Square Garden, Cynthia rapidly became aware that not to be the center of attention might actually constitute a blessing. The mild pique that came from hardly being noticed quickly subsided as she saw the nature of the crowd. The deacons, all high-ranking officers, some of whom she had seen around the corridors or in the elevators at the Astor Place complex, made up at least a third of those present. They looked like a pack of vultures waiting for a kill. The other two-thirds were the kind of successful self-satisfied sleaze who circled any concentration of power – not the leftover jetsetters of the previous night, but the predators, parasites, and scavengers who had actually prospered under the Faithful regime. The only one of them she recognized was Raoul, the Chilean software runner. She had felt a moment of panic when she had thought that Webster was with him and might accidentally let drop some incriminating remark. To her relief, she saw that his companion was some other willowy and anemic blonde.
The way in which she had been summoned to the event had made mingling with that kind of crowd even more difficult. A high level of paranoia had been established from the start. Long-street had called only a matter of minutes after she had garbaged the mysterious instructions that had told her to go to the Proverb show.
"I think you should come with me to the Arlen Proverb extravaganza at the Garden. I've got passes for the VIP lounge."
As if she was not spooked already, that was more than enough to make her sit quickly down on the bed. The incidence of coincidence was well into the red. For a couple of seconds, she was unable to speak.
At the other end of the phone, Longstreet had sounded irritable. "You're that hung over?"
Finally she had found her voice. "I guess so. It was a long night."
"So drink some coffee and pull yourself together. I want you in my office here at five, and we'll go on from there."
"How should I dress?"
"That'll all be taken care of."
She sat on the bed for some minutes wondering if she should just cut and run. She had been told to go to the Garden and wait to be contacted. Was she going to be contacted in the VIP lounge? If that was the case, did it mean that Longstreet was somehow linked to the organization? Or did it mean that the whole thing was a setup? That was the very basic and absolute root of her fear. It was bad enough to feel that she was little more than a puppet with faceless people pulling invisible strings. The idea that these strings could be walking her to her death made her feel sick.
In the end, she decided reluctantly to go. It was not that she had all that courage; it was more because she could not think of a sound alternative. She only had the identity of Cynthia Kline, clerical auxiliary, and no travel papers would allow her to get back into Canada or away to Europe. Her only alternatives were either to become a nameless fugitive without money or support, or to continue to go with this increasingly dubious program. In the end she took a deep breath and started undressing to take a shower. It felt like walking naked straight into the lion's mouth.
Arrival at the Garden did not do anything to allay the gnawing fears. The streams of people that were still milling outside looked crazy, and the VIP lounge resembled nothing more than an anteroom to hell. Even Longstreet was fazed by the concentration of top deacons. As they walked past security on the door and were checked off on the guest list, he muttered under his breath, "My God, the brass is out in force and looking for blood."
Cynthia silently prayed that the blood would not be hers.
Longstreet quickly recovered. "Let's smile nicely and slide into the fray."
Fortunately, the fray proved to be less intense than she had expected. After the initial round of circulation, she was able to take a glass of champagne from a waiter and find a vantage point from where she could watch the show and hardly be noticed.
Longstreet hissed at her. "Try not to get drunk two days in a row."
"I'll watch it."
She sipped her drink and concentrated on what was happening on the stage. All her life she had done her best to avoid TV preachers. Even back in the old days, they had filled her with a restful unease. It was not just the creepy smiles, the overblown histrionics, and the constant demands for money – the thing that angered her the most was their absolute certainty about everything. How did anyone have the gall to presume to be so right? She had to admit, however, that this guy Proverb had a lot more going for him. He was a throwback to the scenery-chewing Elmer Gantrys of the mid-twentieth century, and the special effects were like something out of an old-time rock-and-roll spectacular. Despite herself, she found that she was soon halfway caught up in his act.
After an orgy of multimedia hellfire, he was pouring liquid honey over the masses. Bliss blue poured onto the stage, and an invisible choir of country-and-western angels harmonized in wrap sound.
"The word is joy, my friends. The word is rapture. Do you all know the meaning of the word 'rapture'? Do you know the meaning of the word 'joy'? Joy, my friends, my brothers and my sisters, that's the feeling when you feel so good that you want to jump up and yell out loud, when you want to throw your arms up in the air and just haul off and holler out: Praise the Lord, I feel so good!"
The sound was juiced on the final shout so that it came out as if Proverb were hollering from the mountaintop. Cynthia had to admit that the presentation was slick. All over the floor of the auditorium, the more exuberant sections were leaping in the air and yelling the line right back to the spangled figure on the stage.
"Praise the Lord!"
"Praise the Lord, I feel so good!"
"Praise the Lord!"
The deacons in the VIP lounge were watching in stony silence. There was no conversation above the music and the crowd noise that was being relayed through the monitor speakers. The choir was getting louder. Proverb raised a hand, and the faithful fell silent,
"I'll say it again." His delivery became stylized and mythmic. "Joy-a is when you feel-a so good-a that you want to jump in the a-ir and holler out-a: Praise the Lord, I feel so good-a!"
That time the punchline had been shouted from an even higher mountain. The crowd repeated the jumping and shouting. The choir had grown to a couple of thousand strong and was smoothly sliding into a do-wop back beat.
"Doop-doop-doop-doop-doop-doop-doop-doop."
"Joyyyyyyyyyyyyyy."
"Joyyyyyyyyyyyyyy."
"The message of Jesus is joy-a to the world-a. "
The audience roared their agreement, but even as they were roaring, the rollercoaster ride started to climb again. The choir was fading. The blue light was closing on Proverb. Again the crowd fell silent. Cynthia wondered how it must feel to have such power and control; what it felt like to have command of all those special effects. It was a miracle that Proverb was able to stay sane, if indeed he did. It was also quite clear why the deacons loathed him. He was now talking one on one, down home to the crowd.
"Now, I guess it's no secret that when I was a young boy, I was kinda wild. And I gotta tell you, way back then, one of the things that put me off coming to know Jesus sooner than I did was that I had this crazy idea that Christian folks didn't have no fun. I thought that being one with the Lord was a matter of giving up this and forgoing that and walking around with a long face and a sorrowful disposition. We know better than that now – don't we?"
The crowd howled, and Proverb beamed. A huge image of his face had come up on the back projection screen.
"We know that Jesus came to Earth to bring us joy. We know that Jesus came to Earth to make us know a true happiness. When I began to walk with Jesus, the first thing that I learned was that Jesus wants us all to have a good time."
Proverb paused to let that sink in. The eyes of the huge image seemed to be glowing slightly. For half a second Cynthia felt that they were looking deep inside her. She shook her head with a quick jerky motion. It was far too easy to be sucked in by this stuff.
"Now you may be saying, 'H
ey, I may feel good right now, but there are times when I get downright miserable.' You may be saying, 'Hey, times are hard, Reverend Proverb. There are days when I ain't sure that I'm going to make it.' "
The stage began to darken. Gray storm clouds were driven across the screen behind the huge image of Proverb.
"Hard times, my friends. Hard times, friends and neighbors. Make no mistake about that. The whole of this country is being sorely tried and tested. The one thing you shouldn't believe, though, is that these hard times come from Jesus. It's the good times that come from Jesus. The hard times come from one place and one place only. They come straight from Hell. That's right! Straight from Hell! These hard times are the works of Satan – and don't let anyone tell you different!"
Proverb was in full cry.
"We all know them. We all know so-called good Christians who go around preaching doom and gloom, telling you that hard times are sent by Jesus because you've been weak, or because you've been bad. Well, my friends, I've got something right here and now to tell those so-called Christians. If they're not damned liars then they've been very badly informed."
There was the loudest roar yet from the crowd. They seemed to know who the damned liars were. Cynthia sneaked a covert glance at the deacons. They were in a tight knot around Senior Deacon Booth over on one side of the panoramatic window. They were watching Proverb like a flock of hawks. Booth was already red in the face and huffing and puffing. He barked at an aide.
"I want comprehensive tapes of this seditious nonsense on my desk first thing in the morning. You hear me?"
The aide nodded vigorously. Cynthia scowled. That had to be one bitch of a job, nursemaiding a piece of slime like Booth.
When he had sufficiently terrorized the aide, Booth turned to the other senior officers with a look of grim triumph. "I think, gentlemen, mere's one thing of which we can be certain. After this display – " He nodded contemptuously in the direction of the stage, " – we have ample, legitimate grounds to require the Reverend Proverb to provide answers to the Fifteen Questions."