Nate Rosen Investigates

by Ron Levitsky

  “No!”

  “No, Brothers ’n’ Sisters, I reckon it ain’t the easiest or the quickest. ‘No man cometh unto the Father but by me.’ Some folks’ll say that one man’s way to God is good as another. That’s like sayin’ drivin’ your car through six feet a’ water’s same as crossin’ a good high bridge. Ain’t but one way to follow the Word.” He raised the Bible. “That’s to follow the Word!”

  “Hallelujah! Praise Jesus!”

  Jesse glanced at the congregants, saw their rapt expressions, then checked the recorder. What made people respond so fervently? It wasn’t the words themselves; he was sure that playing the tape later in his office would provide no clues. Something in the words’ power crackled like an electric current between McCrae and his followers. Writing this book was going to be more difficult than Jesse had thought, but he’d do it. The one luxury a Compton never allowed himself was failure.

  *

  It had started easily enough, driving back from the countryside after interviewing a Primitive Baptist, passing through the poor part of town and seeing the sign holiness church of earlyville on a small frame house. He had heard rumors about this church.

  “No,” the next-door neighbor had said, “ain’t nobody t’home. Minister’s at the furniture factory, but his daughter Bathsheba’s workin’ at the Burger King just up on the highway. She’ll tell you anythin’ you want t’know.”

  And so she had. Bathsheba was about the same age as his graduate students but looked older in her company uniform, sitting across the table and sipping a Coke. He was thirty-seven, not that great an age difference; his own parents were eleven years apart. Her hair was black and fell in large curls, framing a face with the brownest eyes he’d ever seen. Her skin was a faded tan, and her cheeks dimpled when she smiled, as she was doing that very moment. She was as tall as Jesse; she’d be taller in heels. He imagined her in a white evening gown with emerald earrings shimmering in the moonlight.

  “I’m a professor of popular culture at the college,” he had said, lighting a cigarette. “I’m working on a book dealing with the churches of this area. The different ways in which people hereabouts worship God.”

  Bathsheba continued to smile but said nothing. As she leaned back, the smock strained against her breasts.

  “I . . .” Jesse’s mouth suddenly went dry. He took a long swallow of his diet cola. “I understand that your church is Pentecostal.”

  “We’re a holiness church.”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean. Do people in your church speak in tongues?”

  She nodded. “The Bible says, ‘And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began t’speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.’”

  “Do you?”

  “Sometimes . . . when the Spirit moves me.” She tilted her head back, eyes half-closed and nostrils quivering. “When the Spirit takes control, you do whatever it tells you.”

  “I’ve heard you do other things in church.”

  “We do all five signs that’s spoken of in Mark.”

  He lowered his voice. “All five signs?”

  “Yes, it bein’ the Lord’s Word.”

  “But aren’t you afraid . . . the police?”

  “My daddy says the only thing we need fear is the Lord.” Bathsheba finished the Coke, her lips glistening. “Would you like to come see a service?”

  Jesse watched her through the veil of cigarette smoke. He had to clear his throat again. “Yes, I’d like very much to come.”

  “Tomorrow night we’re havin’ a service. It’ll start about sundown. I’ll be waitin’ on you. One thing, we don’t allow no tobacco at the service.”

  Jesse noticed that Bathsheba wore no jewelry at all. How beautiful an emerald necklace would look against her throat. Would the church allow her to wear one?

  “You’ll excuse me now,” she said. “I have to be gettin’ back to work.”

  Jesse watched her walk toward the counter. The brown slacks of her uniform weren’t meant to be flattering but still showed her curves and long legs. He knew he was going to church regardless of his book.

  *

  “‘. . . after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.’”

  Jesse looked away from Bathsheba’s lap to her father, who paced back and forth behind the pulpit. Sweat glistened on his forehead and darkened under his arms.

  “‘Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.’ And so Jesus warned us not to take the wrong path, not to listen to wolves whisperin’ ’bout the easy things in life, like some slick game show announcer on the television. You all know the one true way, praise Jesus!”

  “Praise Jesus! Hallelujah!”

  Eyes closed, some of the congregation stood, their arms and legs jerking. Claire Hobbes was one of them.

  Suddenly the black guitar player dropped his instrument, jumped up and turned to the others. He flickered from side to side like a dying fire.

  “It’s true what the Reverend says!”

  “Speak it, Lem!” people around Jesse shouted. “Speak the Lord’s truth!”

  “You all know the kind a’ man I was, before gettin’ on the Lord’s path. Most a’ my life I seen the sun rise through the cold iron bars of prison. Then one day, praise Jesus, a guard gave me the Bible ’n’ told me ’bout this church. Bless Reverend McCrae for what he did for me. . . .”

  “Hallelujah!”

  “Like the good Reverend says, man’s gotta be broke down ’n’ give up everything, especially that devil Pride, before the Lord’ll reach down to lift him up. That’s where I was, lower than a snake, when the Lord lifted me up. Now I know, dear Jesus, You forgive me. I feel the power of Your mercy. Oh, Lord, I feel it washing over me right down, like the cool water of Jordan. Oh, Jesus! Oh, Lord! I feel . . .!”

  Everyone was on his feet now, shouting and singing, so that Jesse could no longer hear Lem. He stood also, saw Bathsheba swaying with eyes closed and singing a hymn. Reverend McCrae had been their center, gripping the congregation with his words. Then, as if gravity no longer existed, people spun away from the pulpit, moved toward one another or staggered into the aisles. Some shook as if electrocuted, some fell to the floor, one man jumped up and down as he ran through the church calling the Lord’s name.

  Claire Hobbes staggered toward Jesse and, as he grabbed her, sounds poured from her mouth. Sounds he couldn’t understand. Guttural babbling. Her arms clawed his, so that he couldn’t wrench free. He tried to understand—baby talk, bastard German, abracadabra incantations that made no sense. He turned toward Bathsheba for help, but she was gone.

  At the pulpit Reverend McCrae held a glass of clear liquid. “‘And if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them!’” He sipped the liquid. “Praise Jesus!”

  Jesse had heard of people drinking strychnine at these services. McCrae passed the glass to a wizened old man, with skin hanging around his neck like a wattle. The old man twitched while also sipping the liquid. He placed the glass on the ground and, clapping his hands, shouted, “Glory, Glory, Glory!”

  Glancing here . . . there . . . trying to isolate the images, to make sense of this new reality, Jesse felt his mind slipping away. Five . . . ten . . . a hundred voices crying out for something he didn’t understand in languages he couldn’t comprehend. Wrenching free of Mrs. Hobbes, he rubbed a handkerchief across his eyes, hoping to make everything disappear. Instead, the breath caught in his throat, as what he had both feared and anticipated was finally about to happen.

  The wooden box.

  Lem bent beside it and, unclasping the locks, lifted the top. Reaching inside he tossed a thick tangled skein, shiny and smooth, onto the floor, something at first Jesse understood as little as the language Claire Hobbes had been speaking. But he didn’t need to understand to feel the chill in his spine.

  The evil on the floor slowly untangled and tried to slither away, but Lem and Reverend McCrae w
ere too quick. A moment later the minister had stretched a diamondback rattlesnake over his head, while Lem raised his right hand, in which two rattlers coiled around each other like the staff of Aesculapius. Each snake was longer than a man’s arm, thick with black markings on skin the color of gangrene, with a half-dozen or more rattles at the end of its tail. Jesse watched, mesmerized, as the snakes looked into the room, into him.

  Reverend McCrae walked back and forth behind the pulpit, still holding the snake above his head as if it were a championship belt. Lem slowly separated his two rattlers and handed one to the old man who had drunk strychnine. Placing the snake under his shirt, the old man stroked the animal while it undulated against his skin. Meanwhile, Lem had draped the third reptile over his shoulders, doing a pirouette so that it wrapped once around his neck and coiled its head like a question mark to stare into his face.

  Taking the rattler from under his shirt, the old man held it out as a gift for anyone to take. Jesse stepped back, almost stumbling over the wooden chairs, while two hands reached for the snake: Bathsheba’s. Turning to face the congregation, she brought the rattler to her breast. Her head thrown back and eyes closed, she smiled as it crawled over her smooth, round shoulders, from one arm to the other. Watching her, the old man clapped his hands and shouted, “Praise the Lord! Oh, praise the power a’ Jesus!”

  Jesse gripped the chair in front of him and studied their faces—the old man’s, Reverend McCrae’s, Lem’s, and Bathsheba’s. He didn’t see what he’d expected. He’d thought of McCrae’s church as a carny show, like the preachers on television aping for the audience, praying for Jesus and small change. This was different. These people’s faces revealed no fear, yet neither did they display a death-defying bravado. Something very private was occurring, a secret not between them and the snakes—they didn’t seem to notice the snakes—but a secret with God.

  He kept watching Bathsheba, trying to understand, but the din within the church broke his concentration. One sound especially, a slow steady scream, pulled him out of the spell. At first Jesse thought it was one of the congregants caught in her religious ecstasy, but the sound was too insistent. He finally recognized the dull mechanical wail of a police siren.

  The others must have heard the sound, yet made no attempt to escape. If anything, realizing the service would soon end, they grew more fervent in their prayers and outcries.

  The front door banged open, but, instead of police, Ben Hobbes walked in. He wore the same dusty work clothes as Reverend McCrae and the other men who worked in his furniture factory. In his sixties, Hobbes had a face sharp as a hatchet and a body all angles, as if even an ounce of fat was waste he wouldn’t allow. He kept his gray hair closely cropped; his barber claimed to sweep iron filings from the floor.

  Hobbes forced his way through the people, pushing them aside when they tried to embrace him. He frowned as he approached Jesse, who instinctively nodded toward Claire Hobbes.

  She had fallen to the floor. No longer speaking in tongues, she was breathing shallowly, eyes closed, dried spittle on her chin.

  Her husband knelt beside her. His face softened as he touched her shoulder. “Claire . . . Claire, honey, you all right?”

  When she didn’t respond, he lifted her and, with a torn red bandanna, gently patted her face dry.

  Her eyes flickered open, her voice barely a whisper. “Ben? What’re you doing here?”

  “It’s all right, honey. Never you mind. Just as long as you’re all right.”

  Jesse watched them. They might’ve been father and daughter—not just the age difference, but the story-time-soft way in which Ben Hobbes spoke to his wife.

  “I was so worried about you.”

  Blinking hard, she touched her forehead. “Why wouldn’t I be all right in church?”

  “Church? You call this sideshow a church?”

  “Hush.”

  “I warned you about this. About all of them. For God’s sake, honey, I know what’s going on.”

  “What’re you . . .?”

  “I know what they’re making you do. The evil, child, I know all about it.”

  She blanched, tried to speak, but couldn’t.

  “I don’t blame you,” he said. “It wasn’t ever your fault. It’s them, and they’ll pay.”

  From the back of the room a man shouted, “All right, everybody just settle down! This is the police, so let’s just keep things orderly!”

  Claire asked, “Ben, is this your doing?”

  He nodded. “This is just starters, honey. McCrae’s gonna pay for what’s been done to you.”

  “Ben, no.”

  “That’s right,” the policeman continued, “everybody just set yourselves down!”

  Police Chief Whitcomb sauntered down the aisle. About five-six, he was barrel-chested, with huge forearms and hands that gripped a man like lobster claws. Yet, every Christmas Jesse saw him dressed as Santa in front of the courthouse, giggling as the little ones tickled his belly.

  “What the hell?” Whitcomb rubbed his eyes then looked again at the pulpit. “You boys see what I see?”

  From the back of the room, one of the policemen managed, “Y-yes, sir.”

  “Pete, go to the car and get me a shotgun.” To Reverend McCrae, “You and the others, you put them snakes away now.”

  McCrae held out his right hand, suspending the rattler before him like a staff. “‘They will pick up serpents’!”

  “You’re in violation of the law.”

  The old man beside McCrae hurried to the police chief. His face twitched hard. “You can’t do this. We got our rights under the Constitution.”

  “Reverend, this is more than just disturbing the peace. We got here a serious violation of the law of Tennessee.”

  “What law?” The old man’s wattle wiggled like Jell-O.

  Just then a policeman ran to Chief Whitcomb and handed him a shotgun.

  Whitcomb said, “The law against using them rattlers to endanger anybody’s life. Now I’m done talking. You best do what I say now.” He banged a chair with the butt of his shotgun.

  The sudden noise seemed to startle Lem, who, holding his snake between both hands, took a step forward. In doing so, his grip loosened and the rattler’s head made a lazy loop, then suddenly whiplashed and buried its fangs into Lem’s right shoulder. He jolted, his eyes popping wide, as the snake withdrew and lolled like a drunkard.

  For a moment no one moved. Then, grabbing the snake just below its head, the old man dropped it into the wooden box. Reverend McCrae and Bathsheba did likewise with theirs, she letting it slide from around her throat like an unclasped necklace. Closing and locking the box, the old man slid it into a far corner.

  McCrae grabbed Lem just as his knees buckled, and guided him to the floor. Jesse joined the other congregants who circled the two men. Ripping Lem’s shirt, McCrae revealed two deep puncture wounds, the skin around them speckled with blood. He acted with deliberation, as if participating in a ritual.

  “Lord Jesus, send your blessin’s upon our Brother Lemuel and sustain him in his hour of need.”

  The congregants shouted, “Amen!”

  “How you feelin’, son?”

  Lem swallowed hard, and his eyes were beginning to glaze.

  “Lem?”

  “Burns, Reverend. Like to be on fire.”

  “You want us to call a doctor?”

  Staring straight ahead, Lem shook his head.

  “You sure? If you want doctorin’, that’s all right. I’ll take you to the hospital myself.”

  “N-no. Let Jesus’ will be done.”

  Whitcomb shook his head. “Pete, call this man an ambulance.”

  “No,” Lem said, biting his lower lip. “Ain’t goin’ to no hospital.”

  “You can’t make him, Officer,” McCrae said. “He’s followin’ the Lord’s will.”

  “God’s will be done,” the old man said. “Lookie this.” He held up his right hand; the tip of his index finger was missing, the
edges blackened and hard. “Rattler did this to me five, six years ago, but I’m all right. It’s all God’s will.”

  Whitcomb stared at the young man. “Best stop this foolishness and let me call an ambulance.”

  Lem shook his head. “Reverend, pray for me. Ever’body, pray for me.”

  Whitcomb said, “He won’t have the time, unless it’s from jail. Reverend McCrae, I’m afraid you’re under arrest.”

  “What fer!” the old man demanded.

  “I told you already—violating the law against using snakes in a dangerous manner. You better hope nothing bad happens to this fella, because the district attorney might even have a mind to charge you with murder.”

  The old man almost spat. “Murder?”

  “That’s all right, Brother Tucker,” McCrae said. “John four:twenty-four—‘God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.’ No one can stop us from worshipin’ God in truth. Take Brother Lemuel to my house. Bathsheba’ll help look after him. Pray with the others for him while I’m gone. He’ll be in my prayers as well.”

  Whitcomb looked at the congregants standing around him. “In the meantime, I don’t want none of you fooling with them snakes. Don’t want something like this to happen again. Understand?”

  Tucker shook his stump of a finger at the policeman. “Just how’re you gonna stop us from followin’ the Lord’s will?”

  Slowly shaking his head, Whitcomb walked through the crowd and stood about six feet in front of the wooden box. Raising his shotgun, he unloaded both barrels, blowing the box apart and splattering bits of snake skin and splinters against the wall.

  “I think that’ll do it,” Whitcomb said. “Come along, Reverend.”

  The congregants murmured their disapproval but made a path for the two men as old Tucker said, “Brothers ’n’ Sisters, let’s bow our heads in prayer.”

  Claire Hobbes grabbed her husband’s arm. “Stop them, Ben. You told the police to come. You can stop them.”

  Whitcomb nodded respectfully. “It’s a little late to say none of this happened. A man’s been hurt, maybe real bad. I can’t just walk away.”