by Don Bruns
I was in the presence of greatness. I was watching a true master of the arts. Here was a self-professed man of the cloth who had taken the attempted assassination, the near death of a media celebrity, and turned the entire focus on himself. All in a matter of seconds. The magician David Copperfield had nothing at all on Reverend Preston Cashdollar.
The crowd was stirred up. They’d all come in the hopes of becoming wealthy, and now there were shootings and death threats. This couldn’t be a good thing. The voices of two thousand plus people in an enclosed area can be just plain loud. And it was.
“My people, please.” Cashdollar held up his Bible, calming the crowd. “We will work through this.”
The noise diminished. Slowly, but surely, they turned their attention back to the man who’d brought them together.
“Let us remember the message we’ve all come to share. You will be made rich in every way. Say it with me.”
And the crowd chanted the message, reading from the banner the scripture that was burned into their minds. The two bodyguards melted into the curtains and the Reverend Cashdollar held the congregation spellbound in the palm of his hand. After all the crap, he had them right where he wanted them.
“Let me bring out two people, just like you, who heard this message three years ago. Brethren, welcome brother Steve Olean and brother William Riley.”
There was light, scattered applause. The names sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place them.
“Brother Steve Olean and brother William Riley both believed this message. They prayed on it, they came to our revival meetings, they met with brother Thomas LeRoy our director of finance, and they met with me.”
Two young white guys walked out on stage, dressed in casual slacks and knit polo shirts.
“Ladies. Gentlemen. I give to you the founders of Meet and Greet, one of the Internet’s biggest meeting places.”
James grabbed my shoulder. “Oh, my God. Do you know who these guys are?”
“He just told us, James.”
“Skip, amigo, these guys were just on the cover of Rolling Stone. They’re like rock gods of the tech world.”
I knew who they were. You’d have to be in the Stone Age not to know the business they started. Started, and sold to one of the big networks for something like a billion dollars. Maybe two billion. James even has a personal page on Meet and Greet, just like My Space, complete with his picture and a doctored history. Believe me, I knew who these two guys were.
“My friends, these two gentlemen would like to tell you their story. Do you want to hear it?”
There was a frenzy of screaming and applause. This was the meat and potatoes. This was what the Cashdollar experience was all about. Two very rich white dudes who owed their success to God — and to Preston Cashdollar. The two men spoke for the next fifteen minutes, telling their story very well. They spoke of their belief in a higher power, they referred to the banner in an almost choreographed manner. Olean and Riley owned the big yellow tent.
“Do you have a dream?” Riley, a thirty-year-old, short, Tom Cruise-looking guy took the lead. “Do you?”
There was confusion in the ranks. Shouts of “amen” and “yes, brother” followed.
Olean leaned into the microphone. “If you have a dream, you can make it happen. If we did it, you can do it.”
The crowd screamed. Shouted. They stood up, and as strange as it felt, as cynical as I was, I stood up with them. We had a dream. I wanted it to happen. And when they were done, they asked the congregation to repeat the phrase. It came back louder than ever.
You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion.
During the next passing of the plate, James put in ten bucks. I put in five. I didn’t want him to feel totally alone. Daron Styles smirked and shook his head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Is it me? Is it the people I hang out with? Is it the society we live in? Is it the American way? One minute I’m totally bummed out. The idea that someone, maybe in the Cashdollar camp, tried to commit a murder. The idea that someone has threatened Cashdollar himself. My feeling that Cashdollar is a slimeball. And then, in an instant, I find myself sucked into a scam. I know it’s a scam, but I want to believe it. I want to believe that you will be made rich in every way. What is wrong with me, with the people around me, that our belief system can change in a nanosecond? What we believe one second can totally change due to greed.
I’m not what you’d call a religious person. I believe in a God, but only because there’s got to be something out there. I don’t buy into this primeval slime that we supposedly evolved from.
So all of a sudden, I’m investing $5, betting that God will make me rich. And I already know where that $5 is going.
“You guys know where your money is going, right?” Styles had cocked the hat back on his head and, back at the truck, he was eating a burger that James had cooked for him as he prepared for the evening rush. The bun was loaded with pickles, peppers, relish, onion, mustard, and whatever else he could find.
James sat on his upside-down pickle bucket, his apron on, waiting for the crowd to come piling out of the yellow tent. “Yeah. Some of it goes to the full-timers. But you know, damn it, you see two guys up there who are worth a billion dollars, and you’ve got to wonder.”
Styles sat on the rear of the truck, dangling his legs over the edge. He sipped on one of our expensive green labels and kicked his feet back and forth. “Yeah, you’re right, James. You’ve got to wonder how much Cashdollar paid them for that testimonial.”
I hadn’t thought of that. I was up by the grill, precooking potatoes, onions, and peppers. “What do they need the money for? They’re worth billions?”
“Boys, read the Time magazine article on them. Read the Rolling Stone interview. See if they mention Cashdollar one time.”
James took a long swallow of the good beer. “You mean, they don’t mention him at all? It’s a hoax?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I don’t read that crap. But I’ll bet they don’t mention him. I’ll bet they don’t say a word about how Cashdollar was responsible for their wealth and fame.”
“So, what could he pay them? My God, they’re billionaires.”
“Look,” Styles finished the beer and pointed to the refrigerator. James, the obedient lapdog, brought him another. We were almost out.
“I’m not saying these guys didn’t attend one of the rev’s meetings. And I’m not saying that they didn’t contribute some jack to his fund. And, I’m not saying that they don’t believe that Cashdollar and the scripture had something to do with their wealth.”
I was tired of him already. “Then what are you saying? Man, you talk in circles.”
“Maybe there’s a grain of truth there. Maybe Cashdollar had something to do with their success, but you’ve got to remember, Skip, this is a show. It’s a circus, a carnival. Remember that. It’s set up to get money from the locals any way possible. These people are entertainers. Entertainers pure and simple. They get paid depending on how well they entertain. It’s no different than the hucksters that paraded around at the turn of the century selling swamp water in a bottle to cure all our ills. It’s a business. An entertainment business, and that’s all it is. The minute you forget that, you become a sucker. Listen. James drops ten in the pot, two thousand people put ten in the pot, they’ve got three collections per service, that’s what? One hundred twenty thousand dollars for Thursday and Friday. Saturday and Sunday, we’ve got two services. Count ’em, two. That’s two hundred forty thousand dollars per day. That adds up to,” he paused, working the figures in his head.
As a business major I could have told him, the trick is to do the math as the story unfolds, not wait until the end.
“Three hundred sixty thousand dollars.”
He’d gotten it right.
“And son,” he continued, “there are a lot of people who put in a whole lot more than just ten bucks. I’m talking a hundred bucks a p
op and more.”
James and I looked at each other. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This guy could do up to half a million dollars. In four days.
Now I got it. James wanted to stick around and soak up everything he could. The good, the bad, the ugly. He wanted to learn just how everything in this operation ran. At the risk of our own safety, James wanted this education. Hell, I wanted this education. I finally figured it out. Stick with James, because it was an education.
“So Cashdollar could pay these two hot-shit entrepreneurs some big bucks. What the hell does he care how much. Fifty, one hundred thousand? It may be pocket change to these young guys, but pocket change is good.” Styles tugged on his hat, pulling it down almost to his eyebrows.
“They’d do it for one hundred thousand?” James was mesmerized.
“They would. Wouldn’t you? Think about it, James. You’re worth half a billion. It’s tied up in stocks and bonds and whatever rich assholes do with their money. Maybe real estate and other stuff. Somebody offers you — maybe under the table — one hundred thousand dollars. Have you ever, in your wildest, seen that kind of money?”
Neither of us had an answer. Figures we’d never even pictured. Hell, we were excited about making four or five thousand dollars. One hundred thousand? We could probably own our entire apartment complex for less than that. Not that we’d want to. Our complex is a piece of crap.
“Pretty good money. And don’t forget, my friends, this is a cash business. The rev and Mr. LeRoy can claim they only got four or five hundred bucks in the collection if they want to. They can pocket thousands in cash. And, as I said, pay the boys from Meet and Greet under the table. No tax consequences for anyone.”
“So that’s what he did? Cashdollar?” James was salivating.
“How the hell do I know, James? I’m throwing out the possibility. That’s it.” He paused, getting his thoughts together. “The word spreads. The rev, he’s got a huge online business. I’d bet he gets a couple hundred thousand a week just from his Internet pledges. And when people hear that the Meet and Greet guys got rich because of Cashdollar? Trust me, the money gates are going to open wide. Remember the second half of that scripture, boys. So that you can be generous on every occasion. Generous to the rev.”
“Holy shit.” James was glassy eyed. He’d almost died and gone to heaven. “Internet. I hadn’t even thought of that.”
Daron opened the bottle and drained half of it. Our beer. Technically Brook’s beer.
“He’s got more arms than an octopus. This Thomas LeRoy, his finance guy? He’s hooked into so many outlets, these guys are making millions in their sleep. Television, newsletters, the Internet, a radio network, a direct mail campaign — and LeRoy is working on a text-message campaign that they figure will rake in a cool million a year.”
I was stunned. “How do you possibly know all of this?”
“I know, okay.”
My God. A text-message campaign that would rake in a million by itself? I’d been thinking small time. I’d been thinking thousands, not hundreds of thousands. I’d never dreamed of millions. And today we’d been in the presence of billions. I couldn’t get my mind around it. Billions. And the funny thing was, these two guys who started this huge Internet site, Meet and Greet, were maybe three years older than James and me. I finally got it. James was seeing the big picture. I was in the Stone Age. It was time to rethink my position. If James wanted to stay and learn, even though our lives were threatened, then we were going to stay and learn. Em would never get it. Ever. I had to live with that. But I got it.
“And the funniest part of this to me,” Daron appeared to be winding up his delivery, “is that it’s run by a handful of carneys.”
James gave me a look. “That’s what Skip said. I take it that’s not a good thing.”
Daron smiled at me, a look of respect. “Oh, I think it’s a real good thing. If you’re Cashdollar.”
Dinner was huge. The crowd had worked up an appetite, and after six collections during two services, they still had enough money to pay ten bucks a head for our meager meal.
“I’ll guaranfuckingtee you that was a record collection, boys.” Daron had probably called it right. “A record collection by anyone’s standards. To come out of an attempted murder on a radio celebrity that the Lord had sanctioned, a death threat against the rev that the Lord was against, and then to bring out the two guys responsible for the business success story of the year? I’m tellin’ you Skipper, James, people will be telling their great-grandchildren about that one. You were in the presence of greatness today. There is absolutely no question about that. If nothing else, I hope you appreciate how this is orchestrated. Every paper in the country tomorrow will have this story. And it’s one hell of a yarn, isn’t it?”
We agreed.
“It’s fun to watch this guy work. He’s just rakin’ it in, and he finds new ways to do it every day.”
During dinner, Daron stayed up near the front of the truck with James and I didn’t see a whole lot of contribution. He smoked cigarettes, finished our entire supply of beer, slowed James down on a regular basis with his conversation, and twice asked me if I could speed up the ordering process. I was ready to kill the son of a bitch by the time the dinner shift was over.
Things weren’t a lot different than they had been up front. There were long lines of hungry revival goers — angry people, pushy people, polite people, and people who just didn’t give a damn. I called them The Starved Masses. All they wanted was a ten-dollar fix. And I gave it to them. With potatoes, peppers, onions, pickles, and whatever else they wanted. Even with our step-up, I had to lean down, sometimes almost falling from the rear of the truck, but I gave it to them. Whatever they wanted.
I used the grill and my cast-iron skillet, and the stench of fried grease, the raw odor of onions and peppers, the lard that we used to fry the potatoes, all came back to saturate my clothes, my apron, my skin, and my hair. The money was going to be good. Getting the odor out was going to be tough. A shower would help get me back to normal, but there would still be a ways to go.
Daron smoked a cigarette and sucked on the last of the green labels.
And right at the end of the rush, right when I could see an end to the line and James and I had wiped the most recent sweat from our brows, right when I was actually trying to figure out about how many ten dollar bills we’d taken in, I saw them walking down the path toward our truck. The reverend Preston Cashdollar and his two deacons. And they seemed headed right toward our little hash wagon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Daron came down to the back of the truck and watched as Cashdollar and his two bodyguards paraded down the path, waving at surprised members of the congregation. I watched an old lady using a walker grab Cashdollar’s Bible-toting arm and hang on for dear life as she pleaded with him. One of the thick bodyguards immediately pulled her off as Cashdollar patted her on top of her thin gray hair and she moved on. Two middle-aged black men did a double take, then one produced a piece of paper and pen and offered them to the rev for an autograph. All the while he clutched the gold Bible, never letting go of it for an instant. It seemed to be the outward sign of his piety.
The two big guys on either side of him moved him down the path, never letting him spend too much time with any one person. The closer they got, the more I was certain they were headed for our truck.
I sensed, rather than saw, Bruce from the donut trailer leaning out, watching Cashdollar. When I turned and looked, he waved, as if nothing had happened between us. And, I have to admit, I was somewhat impressed with the fact that Cashdollar was mingling with the common folk. For all the talk about this man of the cloth, I had never thought about him going any farther than that sixty-foot platform inside the tent and his limo. James and I had seen the black Lincoln that deposited him behind the stage just minutes before the show, and that same limousine picked him up seconds after the last collection. I thought I’d even seen the limo that morning, down at
South Beach. I had a very limited view of the man. Stages and limousines. The fact that Reverend Cashdollar would hang with the man on the street was impressive. Especially in light of what Styles had told us. The guy was in a league of his own.
James was staring intently. “Skip, is he coming over here?”
He was and he did. “Hello, boys.” He nodded at us, a serious look on his face. His gaze lingered on Styles. James’s friend seemed to wilt and I could sense some tension. Finally, Cashdollar looked at me. “I like to meet new vendors. You must be Skip Moore?”
I couldn’t believe it.
“And you,” he pointed up in the truck, “You’re James. Good name, son. You know James was a disciple. Jesus referred to him as ‘son of thunder.’ He supposedly had a pretty bad temper.” He paused. “I should clarify that. James had the temper, not Jesus.” Cashdollar never cracked a smile.
“Thank you, sir. And thank you for stopping by. We were in the tent earlier and you were great. I mean, really, really —”
“Thank you, son. The message was great. Powerful. The man is weak. And the two young men who graced our stage today, that could be you and Skip in the very near future.”
James’s eyes got big, and he had a goofy grin on his face. Cashdollar nodded again. “I’ve been told you had some misfortune during your stay with us.”
“Yes sir, but —”
“And Deacon LeRoy took care of you?”
“He did, sir.”
“Good. I trust you won’t have any other misfortunes. You see, it’s obvious that this business isn’t for everyone, is it?” He glanced once more at Styles, frowned, and his handlers moved him on down the row. I noticed he didn’t stop at Crayer’s donut wagon. He already knew who was in there.
Styles frowned. “ ‘You were great, sir, really, really, really.’ Could you have kissed his ass any more, James?”