“What is the message, reverend?”
“I can’t hear you, friends.”
I figured the guy must be deaf, because they’d about blown my eardrums out.
“What is the message, reverend?”
If this guy didn’t believe in fancy entrances and noisy announcements, I must be crazy.
“It’s a very simple message.” He shouted back at us. “God wants you to be rich. God wants you to have an abundance of everything. Do you believe God’s message?”
Like a well-rehearsed group, the several thousand people screamed, “Yes.”
“Do you believe that God, your Father, wants you to be rich?”
“Yes.”
Cashdollar turned and pointed with his Bible to the huge letters that hung above his head. “Let me read to you why your God wants you to be rich.”
The air was sprinkled with a light smattering of excited applause.
“You will be made rich in every way, so that you can be generous on every occasion. Do you understand? Do you?”
The resounding answer was “Yes.”
“God wants you to be rich, but demands that you be generous with your wealth.”
The choir sang their four-line song again, and Cashdollar smiled. A video camera picked up his face and flashed it on the big screens. The wide smile, the gleaming teeth.
“Be serious about your generosity and God will be serious about your riches. We will start off tonight with a free-will offering. Can I please have the ushers pass the plates?”
Dozens of dark-suited men stepped off the far end of the aisles and started passing collection plates down each row. James dug into his pocket and pulled a five and some ones.
“What are you doing?”
He looked at me through squinted eyes. “I’ve never given a dime to any religious group. What can it hurt?”
“Never one to take any chances, are you?”
“Skip, it’s like insurance. You never know when you might need some riches, right?” He dropped the money in as the plate passed and I saw a look of contentment on his face.
CHAPTER EIGHT
W e stayed for another fifteen minutes, just before they asked for collection number two, and right after the choir had reprised the song about three more times. Cashdollar mentioned that this collection was the serious one. I found out later there were two more during the service.
“There are those people who give and there are those who take away. Do you know who I’m talkin’ about? Do you understand the people who would stand in your way to the riches that God will give you?” He’d moved to the center podium, and he was working up to fire and brimstone, pointing his left index finger at the crowd. On the huge screens you could see his hand and the huge diamond ring on his ring finger flashing under the spotlight.
“You have a man who lives in your community, a man who eats in the same restaurants as you, who sends his children to the same schools you send your children to, a man who drives the same streets as you,” and with each “who lives,” “who eats,” “who sends,” and “who drives” he got louder, and angrier, “but a man who does not, does not, my brothers and sisters, get his riches from the Lord. This man is a racist.” Now he was roaring.
Another gasp from the crowd. It was almost as if it had been scripted.
At the top of his voice he shouted. “A racist, a coward, a man who believes that the downtrodden deserve, do you hear me, they deserve to be kept in their place. He wants the poor to remain poor.”
The word poor seemed to bounce around the cavernous arena. The glint of perspiration on his face was brilliant on the large screen. This was one of the best presentations I’d ever witnessed.
“He wants the weary to remain weary.”
The crowd was murmuring. Who was this terrible individual?
“And he wants the sufferers to keep on suffering.”
Now they were shouting back at the stage. Cashdollar moved to the next podium, held up his hand, and the camera zoomed in on his eyes. Black on the screen. I’d expected animation, a sparkling flash. The eyes appeared to be empty and soulless. But then, hey, this was television. I could have been wrong.
“This man, this instrument of the Devil, has access to your home, your car, your place of business. He comes in and takes control. Every day.” Cashdollar held up his watch and somewhere a camera zoomed in and the watch with its ticking hand exploded on the large screens beside the stage. “Somewhere, at this exact minute, this man is talking to thousands of people, spreading his brand of venom and hate.”
Again there was a hum in the air, voices from the assembled, buzzing, talking to each other, and getting worked up.
“Barry Romans! You know him. Barry Romans. The man is evil, and he stands for everything that we oppose. If you believed in the gospel according to Barry, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
Spontaneous applause, a session that was punctuated with whistling, shouts, and screams.
“What does he say? He says ‘The welfare problem is caused by the blacks.’ That’s right, the blacks. I’m black. Do I appear to be part of the problem?”
They shouted back to the stage. “No.”
“He says ‘We are all ruled by fear. This love thing, this getting along together is a crock.’ He said that, people.”
James leaned over and shouted “This is what keeps ’em coming back every night.”
“Yeah, and the idea that if they agree and give him the change in their pocket they can inherit a fortune tomorrow.”
He scowled at me.
“James, I say we get out of here. It’s going to be noisy, ugly, and I’d just as soon not be a part of it.”
He looked at me, his eyes dancing back to the stage. “All right. I don’t know how far this guy is going to go, but I suppose we should get ready for the crowd. They’re really going to be worked up tonight.”
We worked our way up the center aisle, and I half expected to have the rev call us out and ask us where the hell we thought we were going. It wouldn’t have surprised me.
I looked over my shoulder and immediately worried about turning into a pillar of salt. Some Bible story I’d heard when I was a kid. Cashdollar was waving that gold Bible in his hand and everyone around us was opening theirs. He was asking them to refer to another scripture.
“This is our scripture. In this book, right here. We don’t buy into the gospel according to Barry. No, this, this is the word of our Lord. God’s action is inside this book!”
We made it to the tent flap, and two men in dark suits and matching lapel pins held it open for us. As we stepped outside, I heard the first clap of thunder and the skies opened up. We made a beeline for the truck.
CHAPTER NINE
T hey stayed in the tent. We could see them from our truck, even through the vented window that James had cut in the body of his precious money maker. We could see them through the sheets of rain that poured down outside our little kitchen. They would huddle right on the inside of that huge tent and then a group would make a mad dash for their car. Their van. Their SUV. Their truck or their Cadillac. Then another group would dash to the community of tents and trailers, and then another group. Pulling towels, sweatshirts, anything they had, over their heads. Some of the planners had, of course, brought umbrellas. There was a muddy trail leading from the tent to the paved parking lot, and more than one person slipped and ended up on his butt. It got to be a contest for James and me to see which one would go down.
“The girl in the blue shorts and white blouse.” James pointed as she and a young man came dashing out. “She’s got those floppy sandals. She’ll never make it.”
“My money is on the fat little guy. He’s got on those nerdy white tennis shoes.”
And sure enough, the fat guy went down. Embarrassed, he picked himself up, covered with mud from the waist down, and ran a little farther, slipping again.
“Damn. How much am I down?”