"Just met for the first time," said Word. "We only wanted you as a witness to this extralegal wedding. You need to be a witness that I didn't promise them it would be binding."
So the wedding proceeded, with Word twisting around the words of the standard ceremony to reflect their real situation. He specifically denied having any authority. And when he said the part about does anybody know any reason these two should not get married, he added, "I mean, besides me."
Rev Theo raised his hand. "Well, there you go," said Word. "It's a tie. Two of us think this is a
"Man and wife," said Mack. "Say 'man and wife.' "
It sounded like Mack was quoting. "Is that from something?" asked Word.
"Princess Bride," said Mack. Then he felt stupid for having made a joke during his wedding.
But then, they were treating the wedding as a joke. Everybody but him.
"I thought I recognized it," said Word. And, obediently, he cut to the chase, asking them whether, and they answered that they did, and then he pronounced them man and wife in the eyes of God but definitely not the eyes of the law. "Which means it's still having sex with a minor," he pointed out to Yolanda.
"Planning to tell on me?" she asked him. "Let's tell everybody."
"I'm just asking that you not do it right here in front of me."
"You have my word," she said. Then winked. A punster. How swell. "Of course, you'll have to cooperate by leaving the room."
She turned to Rev Theo, who still looked more than a little appalled at what had just happened inside his office. "Don't you two have work to do now?" she asked. Then she touched his shoulder.
"Yes—my associate pastor here, Word Williams, needs to prepare another sermon for tonight."
"So you don't mind if we stay and consummate our marriage vows here in your office?"
"What?" said Mack.
"We don't have a lot of time, and there isn't a decent motel within easy walking distance," she explained.
"Why, that's no problem," said Rev Theo. "Just don't spill anything on my couch." And with that, Rev Theo smiled, winked at Mack, and left the room.
Word couldn't understand why Rev Theo would act like that. These people had just asked him if they could have sex in his office and he didn't bat an eye. "Who are you?" he asked Yolanda.
She smiled at him. "The part of you that knows, doesn't need to be told, and the part of you that needs to be told, doesn't need to know."
Mack walked to the window and looked out onto the shabby street, where people were already lined up for the evening's service. "I don't think we'll need this room, so don't worry, Word."
"What do you mean?" Yolanda asked him.
Mack turned around with tears in his eyes. "This is nothing to you," he said to her. "But it's everything to me."
"It is very important, but I'm not."
"You're the only man I've ever married. Partly."
"I don't remember you ever loving me," said Mack. "And you sure as hell don't love me now."
"But I do," said Yolanda. "I love you with all my heart."
"Why don't I believe you?"
"Because you have a very limited view of things," said Yolanda. "And, at this particular moment, so do I. What I'm wondering is, are you planning to let your limited view make my limited view permanent?"
"What's going on here?" asked Word.
Yolanda turned to him and shook her head. "Word, the part of you that doesn't understand doesn't need to know, and—"
"Oh, shut up," said Word, and he left the room. Whatever they were doing in there was none of his business. If it didn't bother Rev Theo, it didn't bother him.
There was magic in this. And Yolanda seemed to know all about the change in him. Talking about a part of him this and a part of him that.
Whatever possessed him was not God. It was more like Bag Man. It was about babies being born after a one-hour pregnancy. It was about an old man reaching out to be healed by a fourteen-year-old boy who had no idea what he was doing. It was about his father finding all his poems spread all over the internet and getting reviewed scornfully—the old man was almost catatonic, refusing to go to the office, and Mother was staying with him all day because she was afraid he might kill himself.
It was about magic and evil and not Jesus' healing power.
Yet the people who were blessed last night were truly blessed. There was no trick in it. Not like what happened in Baldwin Hills.
The rumors were flying all over the neighborhood about Ophelia McCallister in her husband's grave and Sherita Banks being transported to a gang bang. And Sabrina Chum had a hideous fast-growing cancer removed from her nose. The doctors said that if it hadn't been discovered till morning, it would have spread so far through her nose that the whole thing would have had to be removed. And Madeline Tucker was spreading around what Ceese told her—that Mack Street saw these people's dreams and knew that something bad was happening and saved them.
Look at it one way, and it was a blessing, a miracle. Mack knew their dreams and he saved them.
So was Mack saving them? Or profiting from their terror and gratitude? Ophelia McCallister was in her living room telling every visitor how beautiful it felt to have that coffin lid open and Mack Street and Grand Harrison lift her up out of the grave. "It was a rehearsal for the judgment day. For the rapture!" she told anybody who came by.
And then Word came back down to the church and spent the day thinking and praying and reading the scriptures. All day he'd been telling himself that the stuff that happened in Baldwin Hills had nothing to do with the Christian miracles here in this church last night. But now he knew it wasn't true. Now he knew that it was all part of the same thing. Whatever had crept inside him, this woman knew what it was, or who it was. She claimed that Mack Street was somehow already her husband.
So by preaching to the people, was he advancing the cause of that vile man who took Mack Street out of his parents' bedroom in a grocery bag? Or opposing it? Whose side was he on? What was good?
Good was that baby being saved last night.
Good was the way Rev Theo greeted him with a hug when he came in this morning, and told him, "The blessing of God is on my house again, thanks to you."
"Thanks be to Jesus alone," said Word to him, and meant it. But now... now he just didn't know.
Was it Jesus? Or was Jesus just... something like Mack? Or something like Word? Possessed. Or some divided-off part of his "father" who wasn't in heaven at all?
He went back to the office door and knocked on it. Hard. He didn't care what they were doing.
He needed answers more than they needed to consummate their marriage in the pastor's office.
He opened the door. Neither of them was inside. The windows were still closed. The door had been locked. Word had never been out of sight of the door.
But all their clothes were lying on the couch as if they had simply disappeared while embracing each other.
Frustrated, angry, afraid, Word went to the window and opened it and looked down at the hundreds of people gathering in the street. No way would they all fit inside the church.
How could he come down and say, What happened last night, that was evil. Because it wasn't evil. It was good. It was healing, and blessing, and it had to come from God.
If I preach to them tonight, just so they won't be disappointed, there'll be an even bigger crowd tomorrow. And bigger, and bigger, because these blessings work. Everybody can see it. Not some vague or phony miracles like a medicine show. He didn't have somebody out working the line, learning facts about these people in order to fake up a mind-reading act. Whatever possessed him was going to change their lives. Some of them, anyway.
How could he say no to that?
"But I don't love you," he said. "I don't even know you."
"Never knew a man to be bothered by that," said Yo Yo. "Men always find out they love me, as soon as I do this." She kissed him.