"Hold it. You see that part right there?" a consultant said. "Where you open up the Bible." He hit the Pause button of the remote control.
"Yeah? What of it?" Reverend Sluggard asked unhappily.
"You gotta be more careful, El. Look at that open page. You can almost see it. What if outsiders discovered that the Bible you carry has blank pages?"
"Who cares about outsiders? It's mah followers who count. And if they see me reading from a blank page, they'll declare it proof of mah godliness."
Everyone laughed nervously.
"And if they don't, you will, right, El?"
"Don't make fun of mah beliefs. Ah don't like it. Now, let's see the rest."
Eldon Sluggard watched as his TV image recited a passage and walked off camera. The tape stopped. "Not bad. But you know, El, I don't think they had crossbows in Bible times."
"So what? Nobody reads the Bible anymore. They watch television. If they did read the Bible, someone would have noticed Ah make up all of my Scripture. They ain't. Not in the twenty years Ah've been in the God Game."
"Let's hope."
"So what do you men think? Did Ah cover mahself, or what?"
"You were slicker than spit, El. I think you got the media bamboozled. They're sure not going to be interviewing any ayatollahs for a dissenting opinion. And the American public wouldn't listen even if they did."
"One question, Reverend."
"Yeah?"
"How'd you rig it so that you got all this publicity? I mean, those terrorists acted like real ones."
"That's not your department."
"If you say so. But there are real folks dead out there. If you set this up and it gets out, it'll be like the Slim and Jaimie story, only worse."
"Don't mention those fairies in mah presence. What Ah want to know is, will this pull us through the next fiscal quarter?"
"Are you funnin' me? People are going to flock to give you money. The most fanatical, hated Islamic regime on earth has marked you for death. That's gonna get the little old ladies worked up from Tallahassee to Tulsa. It's gonna give your new Cross Crusade a happy boot in the ass. Work it right, and we could be golden again."
"Good. That's what Ah want to hear. You men are dismissed."
Silently the twelve media advisers filed out of the room, leaving Eldon Sluggard clutching his blank-paged Bible. His knuckles were white. A drop of sweat gathered in the vertical crease of his brow, rilled down the bridge of his nose, and spilled off the tip.
It had backfired. The whole thing. He must have been crazy to listen to that woman. Sure it had sounded good, but who would have thought it would come to this?
He reached out for the intercom. "Get me that Hoar bitch," he barked. Just wait until she showed. He'd fix her damned pew.
He waited. When the phone rang, he grabbed it, fumbled, and the receiver hit the floor. Reverend Eldon Sluggard got down on his hands and knees and hunted for the phone. He didn't get off the floor when he found it.
"Vic? That you?"
"El," a woman's breathy contralto voice said, and Eldon Sluggard had to pull at his underwear to accommodate a sudden physiological reaction in his crotch. Damn that woman. She always did this to him. Even over the phone.
"We gotta talk," he said urgently.
"My temple or yours?"
"Mine. And don't joke at a time like this. Haven't you been watchin' the news? Ah don't dare leave this place. Those fuckin' ragheads want mah ass."
"Not as much as I do. I'm on my way. 'Bye."
"Bitch," muttered Reverend Eldon Sluggard, fumbling the phone back onto the hook. He got to his feet awkwardly. He felt his shorts rip.
"Damn that bitch," he repeated.
He sat down near his phone, trying to think of things that would cool his passion. He thought of cold showers but that only made him think of the last shower he had taken and who was with him in the stall. He tried thinking of his ex-wife, Griselda-as sure a cure as saltpeter-but her puffy face kept blurring and that of Victoria Hoar's, high-cheeked, long-haired, and topping a body as sinuous as a belly dancer's, kept intruding.
Then he thought about what would happen to him if Iran's fundamentalists got hold of him. They would chop off his hands first thing. They did that stuff over there to people who stole a moldy loaf of bread. Then they would cut off his feet. Then while they were looking for something else to cut off, they would get around to his manhood.
Just the thought of a bunch of bearded mullahs taking a sharp knife to his manhood gave Reverend Eldon Sluggard instant relief. And replaced it with sheer terror.
He began pacing the room, his handkerchief dabbing his face.
"Ah should never have listened to her. Ah should never have listened to her," he repeated endlessly, as if the very words were a charm that would ward off danger. "The bitch," he added.
Eldon Sluggard had not thought of Victoria Hoar as a bitch when he first met her. He had considered her the most infinitely desirable woman he had ever seen. That was at first sight. By the end of their first night together, he considered her his personal savior.
A great many people thought that the Reverend Eldon Sluggard believed in quite a different personal savior, but in truth, Sluggard believed in nothing. Except enriching himself.
Growing up in a tarpaper shack in Augusta, Georgia, Eldon Sluggard liked to tell people that even poor folks thought of his family as poor. His father ran a junkyard and sold scrap metal and old tires to make ends meet. He barely did at times. But he tried. He was a good man. Even Sluggard had to admit that. He was just dirt-poor. Eldon Sluggard knew that the Sluggards had been dirt-poor as far back as the Civil War. He, on the other hand, was going to be the first filthy-rich Sluggard.
He didn't know how. But one thing he was certain of he wasn't going to work for it. His father had worked hard all his life and at forty he looked sixty, his skin all brown and wrinkled from the long hours in the sun, his hands so dirty from labor that even lye soap would not reveal their true color.
Eldon Sluggard got his first inkling of his future the summer he turned fifteen. A revivalist preacher came to Augusta and pitched his tent just down the road from his father's junkyard. It was the middle of summer and the tent promised relief from the heat and humidity, but mostly because admission was free, Eldon went in.
Eldon had never been to church in his life. The nearest one was too far to walk to, and although his father owned several cars, they were all up on blocks and missing critical parts. So it was all new to Eldon, this stuff about God. He had heard about God, of course. Who hadn't? Lots of folks in Augusta mentioned the Lord. Often by name. Usually it was after they hit their thumb with a hammer or found a chigger burrowing under their skin. Then they sang out the Lord's name real loud, they did.
The preacher in the tent also talked loudly of God. But he didn't use the Lord's name to curse. He used it to berate the people who sat meekly in the tent. And they took it. Every one of them. The preacher called them sinners. And they took it. He called them fornicators. And they sat in silence. Some winced. He called them undeserving of redemption-whatever that was-and they only sat there like so many dumb animals. A few sang out "hallelujahs" as if they agreed with the preacher.
And after an hour and a half of this abuse, with the men sweltering in the stifling air of the tent and the women waving their fans and adjusting their summer hats for the hundredth time, the preacher's men passed the plates.
Eldon Sluggard craned his neck to see what was in the plates. He thought the audience was going to be rewarded for enduring the preacher's abuse with sweets or ice cubes for their sweaty brows. But Eldon saw that the plates were empty.
Then the coins started clinking onto the plates. The folded bills flopped. People dug into their purses and wallets. And Eldon noticed that the poorer people in town seemed to give the most money.