by Gary Paulsen
It all seemed a whirl to Steven. The faces came, more and more each time as the word spread, all looking up, all wanting to believe, all clean and many old, most old, and after the fourth or sixth or tenth night they didn't look different any longer. It was the same set of faces, the same set of souls that seemed to follow them from town to town, and at first it bothered Steven, watching Jamey and Davis and now and then Helen fake being healed, but then the money was there.
Three hundred a night was the least. They went to four, five, six, and seven hundred. Then over a thousand a night. Two, three hundred people jammed in the tent on more benches, standing at the sides, begging to see, to hear, and many to be healed, and each of them brought money. More and more money.
Steven started to see fifty-dollar bills, and hundreds, and some older people who endorsed their social security checks, and he would have stopped or tried to stop Corey, but there was the money.
Corey gave him half.
"Here, you earned it." First the fifteen percent out for Jamey and Davis—they paid Helen out of their own pockets when she worked—then a small amount for motels and gas for the truck, and then Corey split it right down the middle.
Steven was making two, three, four hundred dollars a night for himself. He had money stuck in his suitcase, in his pockets, hidden all over the truck in plastic bags, and the money kept on coming. He bought new clothes, a suit so he would look good for the services, new tennis shoes, more new clothes, all the food he'd ever wanted and never had, a new bicycle—eighteen-speed touring bike with Campy bearings—and still the money came rolling in.
"And none of it," Jamey said one evening, watching Steven count his share, "is taxable because it's all religious, and church money isn't taxable in the great and wonderful country of the Uuuu-nited States of Ammmerica. Ain't it grand?"
And there it was, thought Steven. It was grand to have money. They'd been dirt poor—he almost thought of it as church poor except that he realized that none of the churches were poor—Corey just scraping by on bad jobs and worse pay. And now this—to have, to have money and be able to buy things.
Was it bad, he thought, to tell people about God and get money for it? Where did it say that you couldn't be rich?
And his objections went. With his pockets full of money and his stomach full of steak and malts, and his portable video game flashing and his new shoes and new bicycle and new life—in all that, his objections left him.
And he changed.
What was sad became funny. People in poor clothes giving their last dollar to the collection plate became hilarious; people believing in Jamey and Davis until they cried and stood with their hands in the air, waving, feeling the power of God, became something to absolutely roar about.
And as much as Steven changed, Corey changed more. In himself Steven saw the change and at first didn't like it and then accepted it and, finally, came to like what he was—rich, dressed right, smart (he thought), and very, very cool.
In his father he hated the change.
Corey became a peacock. In stages, in gradual steps and then not so gradual, he went from the man Steven had known and loved in the trailer house, sitting at the cheap table trying to figure out where to get money, to being a full-fledged strutting peacock.
He had his hair done by a professional twice a week to make it "look bigger" and sanded his shoes to show holes. He also had a suit made that looked old but wasn't, and from that point on any semblance to being poor vanished. Corey bought new expensive underwear, silk shirts, suits that set his dyed blond big hair off. He wore a gold chain under the silk shirts, socks for twenty dollars a pair, neckties for a hundred, and a set of cuff links in the shape of the cross for three hundred.
"I have to look good to bring the flock in," he explained. "If they think I'm ugly they won't come."
And the truck wasn't good enough any longer. Corey had always dreamed of getting rich, of owning a powder blue Cadillac. By the end of three weeks they had a newer, larger tent, a one-ton used but good diesel truck, and benches to hold four hundred people.
"Jamey and Davis can drive the truck," Corey said one day. "We're getting a car."
And he did. He took Steven to a dealer and bought a used Cadillac. It wasn't powder blue—a slate gray—but it was a Cadillac, and driving it back to the tent Corey leaned back and steered with one finger and smiled. "The ooooonnnly way to fly. Pure luxury."
To Steven it was like driving an aircraft carrier through traffic. But it was luxurious, and even when Jamey had a fit Steven thought it was a good deal.
"They see you driving that Caddy," Jamey told them, "and they'll pinch up on the collection like their hands were cut off. Nobody likes a rich minister. It's almost as bad as being fat."
"So I'll hide it. Park a block away. Who will know?"
And it worked just as Corey said. They hid the car until after the services, then Corey went for it, and he and Steven drove to the next town in soft comfort while Jamey and Davis took care of the tent and brought the truck.
It would have been enough then. There came a day when they had everything they'd ever wanted and the summer wasn't much more than half over, and the money came in buckets and there wasn't anything left to buy except more of the same, and it would have been enough.
Then Corey discovered that some of the women who came in hope of finding a reason for their faith and to see the miracle of God working through Corey were more enthusiastic than others and wanted more of Corey than just his preaching. There were not so very many of these women but some, usually one for each town, and so Corey would take an extra room at the motel and sometimes stay the night, while Jamey and Davis went ahead to set up the tent. Steven would have to sleep alone or with Jamey and Davis, which he didn't like because they spent all their time watching movies where there was always a happy ending that made Jamey cry, and it would have been enough then.
Fourteen years old and sitting in your own motel room watching television, eating all the food and drinking all the pop you ever wanted, looking at your new touring bike leaning against the wall of the room, making over two hundred dollars a day to stuff in socks—all of that would have been enough for any person.
But there was a small edge still, something that would not go away, a thing that bothered him, and a day came when Steven stopped his father after the sermon was over and before he went to the motel room and left Steven alone, and he said, "When are we going to stop?"
And his father smiled and looked through the tent opening at the reason he was going to make Steven sleep alone, who was standing by her car, and he shook his head and said, "Never."
And Steven nodded and smiled and thought he meant the smile and said, "Great," and walked away and it all would have been enough.
But another thing was to happen to change it all and change his life and change Corey's life.
And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in choke the Word.
"GOD LIVES!"
Now, Steven thought, now it will come. He'll make the money come now. He'll start the healing.
And Corey did as Steven thought, healing first Jamey and then Davis and then a crowd that came up on crutches and in wheelchairs.
When the healing was over, Steven turned on "Amazing Grace" for the collection and his father nodded. They had developed a new addition to the service where Steven was more a part of the collection process.
Steven stole a quick look around the tent before he went into his act. Not a bad crowd. Two hundred, maybe a little more. He had trouble judging numbers over a hundred. Once they'd had over four hundred SOBs (or souls on board, as his father put it), and Steven had thought there were more like three hundred. That had been their biggest night so far. Four hundred people in the holy tent.
He snapped his mind back. Timing was critical—timing was everything. Too soon and they just stared at him, like he was a freak or something—a fourteen-year-old freak. Too late and the mom
ent was gone and they stared at him again—this time wondering why it took so long. Besides, if he timed it right, it started what his father called the feeding frenzy, and there were sometimes side benefits. In one small town he could never remember, a woman started to take her clothes off screaming all the while for God to come get her. It was pretty interesting until somebody—Steven thought it might have been her husband—threw a coat over her and got her out of the tent.
Now. No, wait, a few seconds. Just a few seconds more.
"He lives in me, He lives in you! God lives!" Corey cried over the sound of the stereo while Steven passed the baskets. A long breath, held for a beat, letting them think and be grateful that God lived in them and then the hook, the setting of the hook. "And how does He live? He lives because of your precious pledges for the Heart of the Lamb Foundation."
That was Steven's cue. He was back in the front row on the right and he stood now, both hands in the air, palms facing forward.
"YES!" he screamed. "Yes, He lives—the precious heart of the lamb lives in me!"
It was, he felt, exactly right. Sometimes he was still just that little bit off, but this time he caught it out of the corner of his eye. They shot up like robots, their hands up and facing forward while the two men with the precious Heart of the Lamb offering baskets started in the back and moved forward, sliding the baskets along and across the rows, getting the offerings—or, as his father said, milking the precious lamb.
Steven waved his arms back and forth from side to side slowly, and they all mimicked him, picking up the easy rhythm he chose, only putting their arms down to put money in a basket as it passed.
A lot of paper, he saw as it went by—some change but a lot of paper money. That was good. One night in a suburb of Dallas, they had taken in over a thousand dollars. ("A lot of rich sinners," his father had said. "My favorite kind.")
It was going well tonight. Not a thousand but several hundred, by the looks of the one basket. Enough to keep them in good food and good hotels.
God, Steven thought, I love this. I just love this. And he realized he'd said it out loud, jerked his head to the side and saw that the person next to him—a short man in a western shirt—was smiling and nodded and leaned over and said, "Love is what it's all about, brother."
And Steven had meant it bad, meant it the negative way, that he loved the money and the power that came from waving his hands, but the man had heard only love.
Only that.
The man actually loved, loved God and the other people in this room, and there came the edge again, the snarling corner of guilt that had been there before, and Steven nodded back at the man and looked up at the exact moment when a woman who had been healed fell. She was an elderly woman who had been in a wheelchair, crippled by arthritis, and she had stood with the help of Jamey and Davis and had even walked, and they had praised the miracle. But she fell now, along the side of the tent, and men helped her back to her chair, and Steven turned his eyes from her, almost in slow motion, turned his eyes to his father and caught it.
The same look. The edge, the hard cut of guilt, of doubt, and when Corey saw Steven looking at him, he looked away quickly, but it was too late. Steven saw it, the look.
That night his father stayed with Steven in his room and did not leave him alone. He sat at the table reading while Steven drank Cokes and ate hamburgers and watched movies. Once Steven went up to him, during a commercial, and asked what Corey was reading, and Corey held it up to show Steven the Gideon Bible that had been in the drawer of the bedside table.
"For tomorrow's sermon," Corey said. "I'm studying for tomorrow," and he seemed about to say something more but stopped and went back to his reading.
Steven nodded but knew he was lying. He hadn't read the Bible once since he'd started preaching but made it all up as he went, letting his personality, his charisma, carry the congregation.
For two more nights he preached and healed but came back to stay with Steven and read from the Bible, and both nights when it was time for the collection Corey turned his back when the money came, turned his back and let Steven count it with Jamey and Davis.
The fourth night before the sermon, Corey came out to the three of them while they were standing by the truck getting ready for the service, and he stopped and looked at them and said, "I have been reading."
"That's good," Jamey said. "Reading improves the mind. I'll read now and then myself, you know, when I'm of a thought to. What have you been reading?"
"About Jesus," Corey said. "I've been reading about Jesus Christ and what He said." He turned to Steven. "We have to ... we can't..." He trailed off without finishing and turned away to go back into the empty tent. Steven followed.
"What were you going to say?" Steven asked.
Corey stood by the pulpit with the crude wooden cross and shook his head. "Nothing."
"Were you going to say this is wrong and we can't do this anymore?" Steven asked.
Corey had been looking at the side of the darkened tent and he turned suddenly to Steven. "You too?"
"It ... bothers me. The money and the healing and the ... women. All of it bothers me in some way I don't understand."
Corey turned toward the pulpit and didn't say anything but put his hand on the cross, looked where his fingers touched, and stood that way for a long time, in silence, looking at the cross and touching it.
"We have to stop," Steven said. "This is wrong."
"They're coming now. Start the music," Corey said, then turned and walked away, out into the parking area, where the cars were starting to pull in, and when he turned Steven saw that he was still carrying the Gideon Bible from the room in his left hand.
The service started normally, with the music and singing, and when it was done Corey stepped up to the pulpit and held up the Bible and stood in his expensive poor suit with his expensive hair and rich underwear and opened his mouth and said, "You know what Jesus said? He said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." He took a breath and then removed his coat and threw it on the ground. "I have become rich by stealing," he said. "I, we, have been stealing from you, taking money in collections, healing when we knew nothing of what we were doing—we have been stealing your money but worse, much worse, we have stolen something more precious than money."
The congregation sat, stunned, some with their mouths literally open, some trying to smile as if it were a joke. Corey looked at Steven and Steven thought, That's it, go for it, and Steven nodded and smiled.
"We have," Corey continued, "been stealing your faith. I do not deserve to stand up here, I do not deserve to take collections, I do not deserve anything and would not be surprised if you all got up and walked out right now."
He paused and waited but nobody got up, and he smiled.
"For those who stay, I want to talk about Jesus. Really just talk about Him. You know what He said—along with those other things I just read? I have been sitting for two nights reading what He said in this Bible, and He said, 'What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul?'" Corey turned to Steven, looked at him, and smiled and half whispered, "He really said that. He really did."
And Steven nodded and Corey turned back to the congregation and took a breath and said, "Let's talk about that, shall we?"
And they did. They talked for two hours and then sang and the people left, leaving money on the benches even when Corey said he wouldn't take it, and when they were gone Jamey and Davis came back in and counted it.
"Seven hundred. One of the best nights and you didn't even heal nobody."
But Corey stopped him, took the money. "All of this goes into a local charity."
Jamey stared at him. "You were serious up there?"
Corey nodded. "Every word."
"You found God."
"I hope it was more that He found me."
"Can't we keep just a little?"
Corey shook his head
. "Not a dime."
"Are you serious?" Jamey stared. "You mean you're going back to that trailer house and work flipping hamburgers somewhere?"
Corey nodded. "Later. First we are going to spend the rest of the summer making up for the first part of the summer." He looked at Steven. "If you don't mind, I'd like to travel around with the tent a little longer like we first started to do and just set it up and talk about God and maybe read some more about Jesus. Not for money, you understand—just to ... well, to try and make it up, like I said."
Steven nodded.
"We'll sell the Caddy."
"And my bike."
"If you want."
"You people are nuts," Jamey said. "You're just plain nuts."
Corey nodded. "Probably. The thing is, we could still use some help—you know, setting up, putting out the word."
"For no money?"
"None. Not a penny."
Jamey frowned. "Not a chance."
"Well then..." Corey let it hang.
"Yeah. We'll be moving on. There's a guy over by New Orleans preaching the Word by making animals talk. They say he can make a frog spout the gospel. We'll go help him." Jamey nodded to Davis, and they walked off.
Clean and gone, Steven thought, watching them go like they came. Just here and gone. He turned to Corey. "Now what?"
Corey shrugged. "Like I said—let's go talk about God."
"Sounds good to me," Steven said and realized as the words came out that he really meant them. It did sound good....
* * *
Reader Chat Page
1. How does Steven feel when his father first asks him to help with his plan? How would you feel if a trusted adult in your life asked for your help with such a thing?
2. Corey first presents the plan to Steven as wanting to help people. Do you think anyone was actually helped by his preaching?
3. What happens that makes Steven actually begin to enjoy what they do?
4. Eventually to Steven, "What was sad became funny." Why do you think he came to see their situation as funny? Can you think of a time when you used humor to deal with a sad or unpleasant situation?