“I didn’t want to do it, I really didn’t want to, but the voice, it said that I had to and I couldn’t see no other way out but to go ahead and do it and get it done with. She warn’t no bad woman, but she never heard the voice like I did and she mocked at it all the time and told the children to mock at it and to laugh it outa my head, ‘James Teague, you’re a crazy old man,’ she said, and the voice said I gotta make them all stop, so I did it.”
That week a card was given to him. It came out of nowhere to appear on the table in front of him, and the card told him to go to the Voice of God Church three blocks away and talk to the Reverend Huston Avery there. He read it aloud, like a child mastering his first primer, and then he read it again, and when he left he was muttering to himself about not going to see no Reverend Avery and it didn’t matter what the card told him to do, he wasn’t about to tell nobody about what he done, and it had been a mistake to go to the booth….
That night he showed up at the church, still very suspicious, uncommunicative. He spoke to no one. He handled the card all the time however. He returned to the church half a dozen times before the Reverend Huston Avery approached him and took him to an interior office where he talked seriously to him about the call of God.
“Sometimes God has us do things which would horrify our neighbors and arouse the wrath of the non-believers. It is a test for us. I see by the card that you are holding that you are one of the chosen. One of the many Hands of God, chosen to do His will, spoken to, directly by Him. Is this not true?”
The old man nodded without speaking.
“Yes. I suspected that it was so. And you feel that by obeying God’s call you have committed a crime for which the authorities will punish you. Is that not so?”
“Warn’t no crime. Just done what I had to do.”
“Yes, brother. The Voice of God spoke to you and you obeyed. That makes you one of the chosen ones.”
Reverend Avery was in his thirties, open-faced, beaming at the derelict happily. He was a good-looking man, and very kind. “How old are you, sir?”
“Forty-two, forty-three, don’t rightly remember exactly:”
“Would you like a job? We have work you can do.”
So James Teague started to work for the Voice of God Church. He did handyman labor at first, but gradually came to be trusted enough to hang out with the MM’s who stood guard during the services and who accompanied the Reverend Avery when he held rallies. James Teague didn’t join the MM’s because he was too old to be eligible, but in spirit he was one of them and recognized as such. After six months of dutiful labor, spending his wages each week on booze and women, he became converted himself. It happened spontaneously. He had a cot in the Church dorm, where many of the MM’s stayed. Nightly the Voice talked to them, praising their work, extolling them to greater efforts in the service of God. Teague never had paid much attention to the Voice before, but continued his almost inaudible monologue while the Voice spoke, but this time he cocked his head suddenly and started to listen hard, even after the Voice had stopped speaking. He nodded, listened, nodded again. He sat silently then for half an hour, again assumed his listening attitude, this time rising to his feet and leaving the room as one who walks in his sleep. The MM corporal who was on duty alerted Reverend Avery, who intercepted Teague in the hall leading to the street.
“Where are you going, James?”
Teague stopped, but didn’t focus his eyes on Avery. He said nothing.
“James, can you hear me?”
Teague saw him then. “You gotta let me go, I gotta go outside. Gotta get away from it. Keeps on and on. On and on all the time now.”
“What is it saying to you, James? You can tell me.”
“Says that I gotta go to the temple and go into service there. I don’t know nothing about no temple. I don’t know.”
“James, come into the office with me.” Reverend Avery led him into the small, very private office where he seated the man and left him. After a moment Teague raised his head again and listened. This time there was a Voice there.
“James, you must go to the temple and offer yourself for service to the Lord. The Lord is calling you, James. You must answer His call.”
Teague listened closely and when the voice stopped, he clutched his head hard, looked about wildly for an escape and found only the door Avery had left by. It was locked. The Voice started again in a moment, and this time while it was speaking Teague sank to his knees and put his head down low between his hands. “Yes, yes, I’ll do it. I’ll do it! What do you want?”
When Avery returned he found Teague still on his knees, muttering incoherent prayers, promising obedience. Avery informed him that he was to be sent to the temple at Covington. Teague nodded dumbly.
INTERLUDE TEN
Joe: Dr. Bevins, you say that the listener’s Booths will be the most successful part of the Church. Would you care to elaborate on that?
Bevins: Sure, Joe. It’s simple. You see, they give new converts on appointment for the first time in the booths, and at that time there is a real listener. That’s all his job is, to listen. Not comment, not make notes, not censure, or praise. He listens. The poor guy might not soy much the first time, but he is hooked anyway because he can have the attention of another human being for a whole hour without fear of interruption. He can spill his guts and not be afraid of being arrested later. It’s a good gimmick.
Joe: You agree, Bishop O’Brien?
O’Brien: Of course not. It’s a fad, like the rest of it. Besides, most of the people don’t talk for an hour, or any part of it. They go in, five minutes later they are out. Auricular confession, to be successful, must have two participants. There must be a judgment….
Bevins: Exactly my point. After the person is hooked there is no need for a listener, and there is none after that. The booth is empty. They still go and unload, and they seem to benefit from it….
O’Brien: Seem, my dear Dr. Bevins. You surprise me. It is well recognized that man yearns to confess his sins and atone for them. It is not enough to relate them to on inanimate object; atonement must follow.
Bevins: The philosophy of the Voice of God Church is that man does not have this need and the success of the Listener’s Booths and the incidence of repeaters attests—
O’Brien: Like so much that this church has done, this is a truncated version of a practice that was beneficial to man. Just what good can it do to sit in an empty room and relate your aggressions, give voice to your transgressions? Without atonement there is no forgiveness.
Bevins: From whom? Obviously the God that Obie Cox calls upon doesn’t care if pensioners count beads or if they don’t count beads. Just as obviously the people accept this much grander concept with ease. You must admit that this bigger god is more awesome than one who watches to see that a penitent doesn’t miss a Hail Mary….
O’Brien: Dr. Bevins, you are twisting my words….