Lovesick

by James Driggers

  After several hymns, none of which Sandra noted was on her cassette, and the collection that was taken up by a group of Boy Scouts passing around jumbo-sized popcorn boxes covered in aluminum foil, Shep reappeared.

  He read from the book of Daniel and from the Book of Revelation. Sandra followed closely in her own Bible, though she now knew the verses by heart. She studied the Bible intently for hours each day and had lost count on how many times she had read the entire thing. To be honest, she had only read it through from cover to cover that first time, but she wasn’t telling. After that she had given up on what seemed to her to be the boring parts and focused instead on the books that Shep liked to preach from. She had become proficient in the teachings of the Old Testament prophets, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of Paul, and the Book of Revelation. Shep’s sermon that night was taken from both Daniel and Revelation as he foretold of the coming Apocalypse.

  “Reading the book of Daniel,” he said, “is like reading tomorrow’s headlines in the newspaper. The only question is when we get to the obituary section, which column will you be listed in? Those going to Heaven or those bound for Hell?”

  “Amen, brother,” answered the crowd.

  Cling, clang, echoed the tambourines.

  Sweat glistened on Shep’s forearms and he mopped his wide brow with a linen handkerchief. Now that was a souvenir! she thought. A linen hankie covered in Shep scent! The fierce light revealed the faintest trace of a beard on his handsome face. He probably had to shave twice a day. How would that stubble feel raking her cheek? As he sang hymns in her ear?

  Sandra thought for a moment she might have to leave the auditorium. She had considered this possibility—that things might be too much for her and she might have to excuse herself to the ladies’ room. She was prepared to do that, but then, there was an intervention, another step in her transformation. Shep gave the invitation to accept Christ as Savior.

  Sandra was among the first to stand and she walked unsteadily to the makeshift railing that had been constructed around the bottom of the stage. As Shep pleaded with the crowd for their eternal souls, Sandra knelt at the railing, letting her body take over, giving herself over to the glories of redemption in Jesus.

  Wave after wave of rapture shook her, though she kept her hands clasped tightly on the rail in front of her. Several times she was tempted to release the railing, to let her hands roam free, to rip through the layer of cream-colored lamb’s wool, down to the red lace undergarment, and beyond. Each time she resisted the temptation.

  Shep jumped from the stage and began to touch the crowd that had gathered with her at the barrier. Light poured from his fingertips as he drew near to her, and she could feel the heat from his palms as he laid his hands upon her head. There was a familiar tingling between her legs and she knew that even without touching herself she was going to come. She could feel Shep entering her just as the Holy Spirit had entered Mary. “Oh, Glory! Jesus!” she cried. Her tongue flicked against her teeth and across her lips in ecstasy. She felt as if she was about to swoon.

  “Hallelujah!” she heard Shep cry.

  “Praise God!” she shouted, her eyes rolling back in her head.

  “We are going to Glory tonight!”

  In cream-colored lamb’s wool and red lace panties!

  That night, back in her motel room, Sandra was almost in despair. To have been so close—to have been touched by him. And now, to be so totally, so utterly alone. This was worse than when Carson had died, worse than the days after she had first seen Shep on TV—and those times had been horrible, too painful almost to bear as she recalled the ache that had eaten at her insides like a cancer.

  In the motel, she reread the passages Shep had preached on, trying to recapture all the beautiful sights and sounds of the auditorium in her mind, trying to relive the moment of ecstasy when he had touched her, but it was no use. It was gone like a mist in the morning sun.

  And so the pattern continued for the next two nights, which she called Violet and Maroon after her ensembles. Each afternoon she would spend hours preparing herself, then make her way to the Coliseum, choosing a place on an aisle not too far back so that if Shep came into the crowd, he would be able to walk past her. Each night she would follow along with his sermon topics: “The Wages of Sin” on Violet, “The Mark of the Beast” on Maroon. Each night she would answer Shep’s invitation to join him at the altar. Each night she would feel the power rush through her body as Shep’s hand brushed over her. Each night she wept tears of rapture and joy; then as the crowd dispersed and Shep disappeared into the recesses of the stage with Brother Toby, she would collect her things and return to the isolation of her motel room, desolate, inconsolable.

  On the afternoon of the fourth night, which she called Safari, she wrote Shep a letter. Actually, she wrote him four letters, or four drafts of the same letter. It had to be just right. The first version was seventeen pages long, and explained everything that she had gone through, how she had come to feel a special connection to him, be devoted to him. But something told her not to send that one, that she needed to keep things simple and straightforward—if she wanted to get the results she wanted. So the final draft was short, less than a page. Sandra forced herself to concentrate in order to keep her hand from shaking when she thought of the possibility that his hand might be holding this very page. The note read:

  Reverend Waters,

  I am writing to you because you have saved my life!!!

  I watch you every Sunday morning on TV. I have supported your ministry with both my prayers and with my tithe for some time now. It has been my great joy to have been fortunate enough to attend all the meetings here in person, and I have been truly blessed by your teaching.

  I would like to make a generous donation to your efforts. I have written the check but will only give it to you in person. I have some personal matters that I would like to discuss with you as well and would appreciate some time to go over these with you.

  I am at the Ramada Inn. Room 211.

  Tonight Only!

  Yours in Christ Jesus who died on the cross for our sins,

  Sandra (Mrs. Carson) Maxwell

  P.S. This is on the up-and-up.

  Sandra scented the pastel-colored paper with perfume and sealed it in a matching envelope. She ordered a chicken club sandwich from the restaurant at the motel and afterward took a nap. When she woke and showered, her preparations took even longer than normal, so when she got to the auditorium, people were already going inside. She was panicked she might lose her prime spot, but by a miracle—Shout Hallelujah!—her aisle seat was still vacant.

  The opening parts of the service were now a familiar ritual to her. First came the welcome, then songs (she had still not heard one of the songs from her cassette and would surely have to speak to Shep about that), then a prayer, more songs, a personal testimony (usually from a recovered drunk or convict), Bible reading, more prayer, the offering, and finally, the choir’s special anthem. All this was the prelude to Shep’s sermon and his invitation to join him at the altar in prayer. That was when she planned to give him the note.

  As Shep took the stage for his sermon, Sandra could see angels in white robes standing around him. He gave off an aura of blue-white light tinged with purple, and his presence was so fierce she could almost smell him from where she sat. He had his shirtsleeves rolled up. This usually didn’t happen until he was well into his sermon. She knew he meant business tonight.

  “Brothers and sisters in Christ—this evening I am not going to give you a sermon. I am not going to try and convert you to become a soldier in the army of God. No, we have talked for three nights about why Jesus Christ is Lord and Master of the Universe, and if you still don’t believe that, then I guess you are just going to hell.”

  There was laughter among the devout and a smattering of “Amens” from the crowd. Sandra rattled her Shep Waters Tambourine, which she purchased the second night—Violet.

  “No, ton
ight I am going to talk to you about the gifts of the Spirit. The Bible says the Holy Spirit will manifest itself to those who believe. It doesn’t say it will make you feel good—it says it will give you Power. Do I hear an ‘Amen’ on that?”

  More “Amens.”

  “Power. And I am not talking about the power of a V-8 engine or a jet engine or even a rocket engine. I am talking about the Power of God himself. I am tired of namby-pamby religion. The Apostle Paul tells us that we can expect to heal people, to work miracles, to drive out evil spirits—demons, to speak in tongues, to prophesy.”

  The crowd was firing up—Shep’s words sizzled like drops of water in a hot pan. He wiped his face with his handkerchief.

  “Now, I am not a particularly smart man. I am certainly not a very well-educated man. But I do know that either what the Bible says is true or it isn’t. And do you know how I know?”

  He paused as the throng hushed in anticipation of his answer.

  “I know because I have seen it! I have heard it! I have lived it! Glory Hallelujah!”

  “Glory be to God!” called Sandra. A heavyset man in a dark blue suit and red necktie danced beside her in the aisle.

  “When I was a boy,” continued Shep, “my mamma took me to church every time they opened the door. And I bless her sweet memory, now she has passed on to be with Jesus, that she brought me up to love the Lord. Can I get an ‘Amen’ on that, brothers and sisters?”

  He got it.

  “Now, the church we went to was not one where they were concerned with being dignified.”

  Shep pulled himself up into an exaggerated pose, scrunching his face in his impression of a stuck-up clergyman. “Dignified” came out through his nose—high-pitched and whiny. The crowd stomped in agreement.

  “Because it wasn’t dignified when Jesus was hanging naked on the cross, I can tell you that. When he shed his blood that day on Calvary. No sirree, brother, they humbled him so that God Himself could glorify him in Heaven. So that the Father could lift up the Son.”

  Sandra let the tambourine brush against the front of her blouse. She could feel her nipples hard and erect beneath the silk.

  “I don’t know how many of you know where I come from, but it was a tiny place, not even a town, just a speck on the map—Pison River Gap—and the church we went to—Mt. Pisgah Holiness Tabernacle—was a way up in the mountains. It was just a worn-out, rickety, one-room church, but that didn’t matter because it was a Holy Ghost Church. We would raise the roof off that old building sometimes as people got filled with the spirit. And I saw healings, and I heard people speaking in tongues. . . .”

  From around the auditorium came a smattering of clicking, guttural sounds as the true Holy Ghosters rose up and began to speak in tongues.

  “And I knew that the Power of the Almighty was not a theory, like that theory they try to corrupt the minds of our children with these days, the theory of evolution.” Shep paused, realizing he was about to shift sermons in midstream. He gave a boyish grin. “But we can save the theory of evolution for another time. Tonight we are talking about the evidence of the Holy Spirit!”

  The audience shouted its approval.

  “Now, we had a man in our church, Brother Hiram, who I reckon was about as old as Methuselah himself.”

  The group gave a generous laugh.

  “Brother Hiram couldn’t come to church each week because he lived even farther out of town than most of us, but we knew when he would come, it would be a special day. Because when Brother Hiram came to church, he would bring the snakes.”

  Sandra tried to picture this old man, creeping down the side of mountain with a burlap bag filled with snakes. She didn’t like the image. She hated snakes. Once, she had had to kill one in the garden and as she hacked at it with the hoe, each severed segment writhing at her feet, she had screamed in anguish like she was being hacked to pieces herself.

  “Brother Hiram would bring the snakes and we would claim the Scripture that whoever believes shall not perish by the serpent nor by poison.”

  Sandra noticed he pronounced the word in the mountain way: “pie-sin.”

  “And the serpent had no power. We would hold those snakes like they were kittens, and even though they had the fangs of a viper, they did not harm us. And do you know why? Because when God is walking beside you, the Devil gets stomped on.”

  Events began to unfold around Sandra like a children’s pop-up book, each more fascinating, more wondrous, more bizarre than the last. A woman several rows down sprawled full-length into the aisle jumping and shaking as the Spirit overcame her. A young man in the wheelchair section jumped up and ran out toward the lobby, healed. Behind her, Sandra heard a voice announce, “My daughter just got an anointing in the hospital. I can feel it. She won’t need the operation. I’m going to go take her home tonight. Praise God!”

  Praise God.

  When Sandra focused again on the stage, she saw Brother Toby walking out from the side of the stage holding a brown cloth sack. As he clutched the top tightly, she could see the twisting and turning going underneath the surface. She knew at once that Brother Toby had brought Shep his snakes.

  Shep did a little dance on the stage, a rapid tap! tap! tap! with each foot and then a hop. He reminded her of a young boy on Christmas morning eagerly waiting to unwrap the last toy, his favorite.

  “I think Brother Toby has brought us a surprise. Something to show the power of the Lord! Do you want to see it?”

  The crowd roared as one. “YES!”

  No! thought Sandra. I do not want to see this. Not this. This is not what she had come for—she was elegantly dressed, for God’s sake! She wanted the spectacle and the colored lights—the beauty of Shep’s voice—the softness of his touch. Snakes were low, vile.

  But Shep already had the snake in his hands. It dangled before him—long, fat, slimy. Shep held it up so the audience could see. “This snake could kill me,” he said, “but it won’t. And you know why? Because Jesus won’t let it!”

  “Praise be to Jesus!”

  Shep walked to the edge of the stage. Sandra knew that tonight was the night she had been waiting for all week—when Shep would descend into the crowd.

  He took his time as he made his way up and down the rows near the stage, stopping, praying with one or another, swaying back and forth with the crowd like a tree momentarily caught by a breeze, distracted; then he would hold the snake high over his head and turn round and round like a whirlwind before setting off again. His golden white light shot at her now like arrows, like lightning. It was too much. She clamped her eyes closed. But she could feel him coming closer. Closer. Closer. Then he was there beside her.

  “Sister.”

  She lifted her head and opened her eyes. The brightness of Shep shone down upon her. He held the horrible serpent in front of him with his right hand—so long that it almost touched the floor. He extended his left to her as an invitation.

  “Is there anything you want tonight, sister?” he asked.

  Her throat was dry, parched. Her voice cracked as she tried to speak. “I love you,” she said. “I brought you a letter.” She thrust the envelope out toward him. He took it and in that instant when their hands touched, Sandra knew the snake was watching her. She could feel its cold, dead eyes turn down toward her, searching her thoughts, her heart. It opened its mouth wide so she could see the fine points of its fangs.

  “I love you, too,” said Shep as he slipped the note into his pocket.

  The snake squirmed in Shep’s hands trying to jump free. Sandra heard herself scream; then she fainted.

  When Sandra came to, she was lying on a cot in a cordoned-off area in the lobby of the auditorium. It had been set up for those who had been overcome during the services and was staffed by two female volunteers, both LPNs. They had taken Sandra’s blood pressure, which was low, and when she woke they offered her a can of orange juice and a dry chocolate chip cookie in case her sugar was also below normal. Sandra’s head ached, an
d she could feel a small knot rising on the right side of her forehead. She could taste blood in her mouth, and the inside of her cheek felt like ragged meat where she had gnawed it.

  The three of them were alone in the makeshift room, but Sandra could hear people walking by on the other side of the screen. She knew the services were over. She wanted to leave here, Shep might be waiting for her at the motel. The recovery room seemed too small for herself and the two attendants. They sucked up all the air in the room and Sandra was afraid she might faint again. Lying on the cot, looking up at them as they hovered over her, Sandra imagined the women were dirigibles or inflatable floats like the ones in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Sandra figured that the hostesses on the Home Shopping Network would recommend they buy the stretch knit fabrics in sizes L-3X. For those who don’t want to sacrifice fashion sense for comfort! They wore tags pinned to their blue polyester smock tops that showed both their name and their church affiliation. Betty Church of God of Prophecy spoke first.

  “You got a powerful knock on your noggin there,” she said. “You will have a bump there for a while.”

  “How are you feeling now?” asked Aurelia Calvary Baptist.

  “Woozy,” said Sandra.

  “They said the Lord just jumped down and slayed you in the spirit,” said Betty.

  “There was a snake. I thought it was going to bite me. It seemed to know me.”

  “That was just the Devil trying to get at you when the Spirit was coming on you, honey,” said Betty. “They said you spoke in tongues.”

  “I don’t remember it,” said Sandra.

  “Not important that you remember it,” said Aurelia. “God remembers.”

  And so does the snake, thought Sandra.

  When Sandra got back to the motel, she discovered she had ripped the hem out of her pants so one leg was frayed like the skin of wounded beast. Her makeup was smeared, and the reflection looking back at her from the mirror was of another woman, another face, distorted, bizarre. Her hair was wild and uncombed, and she had lost one of her earrings. She tried to repair the damage while listening for Shep to arrive. She wanted to take a shower but did not, fearing she might not hear his knock. So she just stripped to her black foundation garments and sponged the sour sweat off her body, which stuck to her like a poultice. When she was done, she put on her best robe—midnight lace—and waited. Finally, sometime after the clock said 3 AM she fell asleep on top of the covers, propped up by the pillows.