“Reading those things is a sin!” Pastor Bob interrupted, and he pulled off to the side of the road. “They’re the work of the Devil,” he continued, his voice rising. “Whenever you read those, you are giving the Devil power. You are mocking God’s will. As soon as you can, you need to get down on your knees and ask God to forgive you for reading those things!”
“I—I’m sorry,” I said, folding up the paper and laying it on the back seat, wondering just what I’d gotten myself into.
Pastor Bob put his rig back in gear and pulled out onto the pavement just as Limbaugh delivered his final comments: “Despite what the liberals want you to believe, our brave sons and daughters are bringing democracy to Iraq. Gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow!”
I tried once again to make conversation. “So do you think the United States can bring democracy to Iraq?”
I should have known better.
“Oh, yes!” Pastor Bob was off and running. “They had better learn over there. They need to be saved! The rapture is coming! God, His Holy Son, and all the Angels are coming out of the sky, and they’re going to cut off the heads and burn the bodies of those who are not saved. It will be one great inferno!”
He was gaining momentum. “The Almighty is going to destroy the baby killers, the homosexuals, and anyone who doesn’t live by His word. He will bury them in mud and send waves to destroy their homes in every place in the world. I know! I have been to Israel six times! I have walked where Jesus walked. I have felt His pain!” His eyes began to get teary and his voice was trembling.
I thought it best to just keep my mouth shut. I turned and looked out the window, wishing I could escape Pastor Bob’s big blue SUV.
Bob composed himself and cleared his throat. “President Bush can’t come right out and say it, but he believes homosexuality is a sin against God Almighty. If I could cure them of their disease, I would plunge my hand into them and pull out the cancer that dwells inside them. Then I would take those people and put them into a homosexual treatment center to cure that abomination forever more.”
I remained quiet, but my imagination could not be silenced. I tried to picture what a “homosexual treatment center” would look like to him. Would it have photos of porn stars like Chesty Morgan holding up her 44Ds, Nina Hartley with her legs spread, and Janie displaying her pierced vulva? If so, it would be just like the bathroom at The Maple Leaf, which is about as far as you can get from a gay-friendly establishment.
“You’re not one of them, are you?” Pastor Bob peered at me for my answer.
“Oh, no, no,” I said, laughing.
“Because, if you are,” he continued, this time leaning toward me, “not even the most powerful preachers in Dallas or Houston can save you. You are damned!”
“Not me. I like women,” I assured him.
Bob pulled back from me. He appeared greatly relieved by my answer, and he focused his eyes back on the road ahead.
Shortly, he raised his right hand and began to quote scripture to me: “And God said ...”
Pastor Bob had driven us to the edge of town. We were in a neighborhood of rundown houses and pulled up in front of one. There was a plastic children’s pool in the front yard, which had collapsed on one side. The water remaining in the pool was a very special shade of stagnant green. The yard was littered with broken plastic toys—a Tyco wheelbarrow with no wheel, a lawn mower with one wheel, and a plastic bike with no handlebars. It was a true Toys“R”Us junkyard.
“I’ll be right back,” Bob said, as he opened the SUV door, activating the electronic ding-ding-ding. I watched Bob walk to the front door and knock. A few seconds later, a man in a T-shirt opened the door and they conversed. I could tell by the way Pastor Bob was shaking his head that the man in the T-shirt didn’t have the answers Pastor Bob was looking for. He was frowning as he walked back to the vehicle. The ding-ding-ding sounded again as he opened the door and slid behind the wheel.
“Another freeloader,” he said with disgust, turning the ignition key. “The SOB is a week behind in his rent. I own several houses I rent out. I told him to pay in two days or I’m going to toss him out.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied. “Speaking of money, Tina said you might be able to help me out with some gas money. Would you? Maybe ten dollars? I’m on empty.”
“I never carry any cash,” he responded, seeming to brush off my request. “I use my credit cards all the time; I get frequent-flyer miles. I like to go to Las Vegas to see all the shows, and we went to Disneyland the last three years with the kids. Remind me tonight at church, and I’ll get you ten then.”
Pastor Bob made an abrupt turn off the main road into a cul-de-sac and rolled to a stop. He grabbed his cell phone and pushed one number. “Ernie? It’s Bob. Hey, I just made a pit stop and that Toyota is sitting in the driveway. We are on for the repo tomorrow!” He slapped the phone closed and put it on the seat beside him. “The deadbeat who bought that car from me,” he said, pointing to the tan Corona, “is two months behind in his payments. We’re going to repossess it at noon tomorrow.” He paused and looked at me. “Hey! I’ve got an idea: How would you like to go to work for me?”
“I—I don’t know,” I stammered. “I do need the money ...”
“Well, I need somebody to help Ernie repo cars,” he said.
“Gosh, I don’t know. I’ve never done that before. It sounds dangerous.” I was stalling.
“It’s easy! I can train you. I’ll pay you ten bucks an hour.”
“I’ll have to think about it,” I finally said, trying not to say no and certainly not wanting to say yes.
“Well, think about it.” Pastor Bob said, as he started his SUV again. He made a U-turn and headed back to his dealership.
“You need a job,” he said as the car picked up speed. “After you have repossessed four or five cars and have some money in your pocket, you will feel better. You will have that feeling of accomplishment and pride.” He paused briefly. “You said you like women, didn’t you?” He lowered his voice just a bit. “I bet you don’t have a woman right now, do you?”
I fumbled for an appropriate answer, but Pastor Bob just kept talking. “I know you don’t,” he said, “because it’s ‘no money, no honey’! That’s the way it is. Women like money. They have to have it!” He laughed heartily.
“I—I—” I began again, thinking of mentioning women like Mother Theresa, but Bob was on a roll.
“After you get a few repos under your belt, maybe we can find you a good Christian woman who will ...”
Pastor Bob kept on talking, but I tuned him out. In a fifteen-minute car ride, he was stripping away any small piece of dignity I had left. He reached for the radio and rock music filled the SUV. He reached out again and pushed the volume up; then he began to sing along.
It was a tune I didn’t know, but it had a nice beat. The lyrics were strung together with liberal doses of “my Lord” and “my Savior.”
“That’s Michael W. Smith,” Pastor Bob stopped singing long enough to inform me. “He’s going to sell more records than Elvis or the Beatles before he’s done. We flew down to Branson, Missouri, to see him live, a couple of weeks ago.”
While Bob was tapping his finger on the steering wheel to the beat of the music, I began to hum an old Beatles song, listening to the words in my head.
“What’s that song you’re humming?” Pastor Bob asked.
“Oh, just one of those old Beatles songs,” I said. “It’s called ‘Imagine.’”
“I don’t think I’ve heard that one,” he said.
I sat quietly until we turned into the dealership and pulled to a stop. “Well, Richard, I’ll see you tonight at church,” Bob said, opening his door.
I climbed out of the SUV, picked Willow up, and carried her to my van. We needed to find a park where Willow and I could take a walk and think.
We found one not too far away and pulled into the parking lot. Willow jumped out of the van, and a chipmunk caught her eye.
She was off in a second for the chase, but stopped at the base of a tall fir, which the chipmunk had scampered up to escape my wild Willow. “You treed that one, Willow!” I laughed as she circled the towering tree.
The beautiful branches of the fir draped across the sky. I stood there, admiring the natural wonder, and tried to envision Pastor Bob’s angry angels flying in at light speed to kill all the gays with laserlike, pinpoint fireballs, burning all the sinners and nonbelievers and horoscope readers, and then airlifting Pastor Bob and his flock to a Disneyland/Las Vegas heaven. Was I expected to believe that God was going to destroy this wonderful creation we call Earth—the tree I was admiring, the waist-high ferns that surrounded me, the mountains and all the other creatures—in a gigantic hissy fit? I found that hard to believe.
Early that evening I pulled into the small parking lot of the church. It was just before seven. There were about ten cars in the lot, all with elect bush-cheney and jesus saves stickers on their bumpers. I was hoping the owners would take up a collection to save me that night.
As I opened the door of the small church, I was greeted by the sight of a dozen or more people. Pastor Bob was busy setting up a projector and a movie screen, but he waved and smiled at me. I waved and smiled back. It didn’t take him long to get the show under way. “I’ve got a great movie for us to watch tonight,” he announced. “Would you all take your seats, please?” We all found seats in the pews as the lights were flipped off and the projector rolled.
The perfect preacher and the perfect choir in the perfect church in Dallas filled the screen. The preacher paced back and forth on the massive stage, asking his flock over and over again if they wouldn’t be willing to give up everything to be born again—the job at the plant, the wife, the house, the truck. “What price would you pay for everlasting life?” he asked. Then he told the perfect story of his perfect daughter leading the perfect life, and everyone—on the screen and in the little church hall—was yelling “Hallelujah!” and “Praise the Lord!” Then the perfect daughter went off to the perfect college and was the perfect student—until she forgot to be perfect all the time, and she smoked, and she drank, and she even tried that evil marijuana. But God told the perfect pastor and his perfect wife what to do, and they went to California to get their once-perfect daughter and bring her back to the Lord, and everybody yelled ”Amen!” After a dramatic pause, the pastor stated in an intimate tone that quickly rose to a shout, “Sandi Jean didn’t ask to be born. But she did ask to be born again. She asked Christ Jesus to forgive her her sins, and He did!”
The crowd in Dallas was now standing, crying out, “Praise God! Praise God! Hallelujah!” And everyone in the small church in Gig Harbor was doing the same, except me. This was new to me. But I’ll try anything, so I stood up, raised my arms halfway with my fists clenched, and mumbled a “Hallelujah” or two. I felt I wasn’t doing it right, so I watched the man in front of me, raised my arms a little higher, and opened my palms. “Praise God,” I ventured. “Praise God.”
The preacher on the film held out both arms as the chorus of praises continued. Then, like a maestro before a grand symphony orchestra, he raised his right hand and the throng quieted. “If you, too, want to be born again, all you have to do is ask!” and the audience erupted again in applause. Then three white projector screens came floating down from the top of the cathedral like billowing clouds, and a woman in a sequined white dress walked to the center of the stage with a microphone in hand. “Please sing along,” she sang to the audience, as music and lyrics appeared on each screen.
“Je-sus, Je-sus, Je-sus,” the song began, and a little cross appeared above each word to help the crowd sing along. “We want to know you. We want to know you.” The cross bounced from syllable to syllable.
“I know this one,” I thought to myself. “That’s a George Harrison song. ‘I really want to know you ...’” I hummed to myself.
“Je-sus, Je-sus,” the woman in white sang, raising her hand slowly to the screen.
“Well, I guess it isn’t the George Harrison song after all,” I concluded. “But they stole his line!”
The people in the little white church joined in the song, closing their eyes and raising their hands and their heads to the ceiling. I did the same, except I kept one eye open to follow the dancing cross.
Pastor Bob turned on the lights and raced to the projector as the film came to its end. People scrambled about the church, lining up for the bathroom. Meanwhile, I studied the tapestries hanging on the walls, trying to figure out what they meant. What I saw looked like ghosts and animal sacrifices, probably scenes from the Old Testament.
With everyone now back in their seats, Pastor Bob stepped to center stage and did a local replay for his little flock. “Did you like the film?” Hallelujah! “Have you all been born again?” Yes! “How about you, Mary Lou?” Yes! “And you, Jim? Have you been born again?” Yes, hallelujah! “And you, Richard?” He was pointing at me. “Have you been born again?”
“I ... I ...” I stammered and hesitated. Everyone was staring at me in the silence. “I think so,” I finally managed to say.
“No, that can’t be!” Pastor Bob said. “You know when you are born again. It’s not like anything you have ever known before!”
Everyone yelled “Hallelujah!” and I felt a hand on my right shoulder, then another on my left. “Save this sinner, Father God!” I heard the voice on the left say. “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” came the response from the right. They gently pushed me forward until I was standing below Pastor Bob. I could hear the movement of the congregation and soon they had encircled me. They all knelt and clasped their hands in prayer.
I wanted to run. But how? My gas tank was nearly empty and I had no place to go. I wanted to say, “Hey, guys, this isn’t for me.” But that would spoil their party. I felt trapped.
Pastor Bob reached out, put his hand on my shoulder, and began praying, “Dear Father God, forgive this man his sins and help him accept you and be born again.” Then I felt other hands touching my shoulders and pushing me back. Still other hands caught me from behind and lowered me to the floor, until I was prone. As I was making that long journey from standing upright and independent to being helpless on the floor, I thought of the pictures of the animals on the wall hangings I had studied earlier. Was I to be some form of ritual sacrifice? There were hands all over me now. I closed my eyes, giving in to whatever was to follow. I could see no way out.
“Drive the sin from this man, oh Father God,” Pastor Bob prayed fervently. Others eagerly joined in with shouts of “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” and another woman’s voice layered in the “Oh God, Oh God. God, God, God!”
“Wow—that voice sounds very similar to the voice from room 204 back at the Driftwood Motel a week ago!” I thought. I opened one eye ever so slightly to see who was crying out the “Oh God, Oh God,” and it was the preacher’s wife, Doreen, kneeling over me with her arms stretched skyward, her head bowed and her eyes closed.
A man’s voice shouted, “Be gone, Satan! Be gone!”
“Save this child, Jesus,” Pastor Bob said. “In God’s name, save him!”
I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to open my eyes. I expected to see a vision of George Bush on the ceiling. And I didn’t know what to say. I remembered Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry, vowing, “I’m going to fight the Devil. I’m going to kick him; I’m going to bite him!” I thought of Robert Duvall repeating “Holy Ghost power! Holy Ghost power!” in The Apostle and Steve Martin working his miracles in Leap of Faith. But my thespian skills were rusty. My biggest acting role ever was playing the little tailor in Seven in One Blow in the sixth grade. I had also played the ensign in Mister Roberts when I was a junior in high school. I think I had two lines: One was “Mister Roberts! Mister Roberts, the palm tree is missing!” and I couldn’t remember the other—but even if I could, it undoubtedly wouldn’t serve me well in my current situation.
They were now all chanting over me. The passionate t
ones of a woman with a speech impediment resounded above me. “God, hep him, hep him!” I knew they weren’t going to give up, and they certainly weren’t going to give me any gas money until I was saved. There had to be some climax to this night.
So I started trembling in my hands, then in my arms, then in my legs. I moved my head from side to side and whispered, “Thank you, Jesus.” I waited a moment and added, “Thank you, Father God!”
“Hallelujah,” said Pastor Bob. “Hallelujah,” another man’s voice echoed.
I opened my eyes, and the arms of the people quickly lifted me to my feet. Each member of the small congregation hugged me. Pastor Bob quickly turned and flipped on the stereo he had placed on the altar steps and an Amy Grant song filled the room.
A fellow named Jim began a sequence of clapping and wringing his hands and raising his arms in the air as he stomped the floor with his cowboy boots, shouting “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you!”
As I shook each of the hands thrust toward me and looked into each of the beaming faces, I felt waves of mixed gladness, sadness, pride, and deep emptiness. I was glad for them as they celebrated the joy of saving my soul, proud of my theatrical performance, and very sad, because deep down inside, I knew I could not share in their born-again party.
The faithful began to file out of the small church, and Pastor Bob packed up his projector and shut down his boom box.
I hung around, hoping for the gas money he had promised me earlier in the day. The repo drive-by already seemed a distant memory. “I was wondering if I could get that gas money we talked about,” I finally ventured.
“Oh, yes. I had forgotten about that.” Pastor Bob fished in his back pocket for his wallet. He took out a ten and handed it to me.
“Thank you,” I said, ready to head for the door.
“Oh! I’ve got a couple of other things for you, too,” he added, heading for the pew where he had left his briefcase. He reached in and lifted out a brown envelope.
“Here’s a couple of bumper stickers for your van!”
Breakfast at Sally's Page 15
