by Nina Smith
“Yes Preacher.” Magda staggered under the weight of the box he handed her, but since no other help was forthcoming, took it out the front herself and shoved it into Preacher’s open boot. His back seat was stuffed with placards. He must be expecting the entire Congregation to turn out, and then some.
She leaned in and turned over one of the placards. Hells Bells Vodka. Named after its maker, it said.
“Well that’s just moronic.” Magda turned over another. Protect our children, it said, and underneath that was a picture of Adam’s face with a big cross through it.
Every hair on Magda’s body stood on end. She slammed the door shut and backed away from the car. If she’d believed in God, she would have prayed for a way out of going to this rally, but she didn’t and there wasn’t one. Preacher and John locked up the house and joined her in the driveway.
“Don’t look so frightened, Magdalene, it’s just a rally,” Preacher said. “You’ll be quite safe. The entire Congregation will be there.”
Magda got in the car next to John. He ignored her completely and followed Preacher’s car out of the driveway.
Magda reached for her phone with numb fingers. She tapped out a message to Adam. Don’t be at City Square this morning. Under any circumstances. She pressed send.
“Who are you messaging?” John asked.
“Just a friend. Reminding her about the rally.” Magda shoved her phone back in her bag and stared out of the window. The highway flew by. They turned off; cars packed all of the streets around City Square, the one place in Hailstone where big gatherings could happen. It was two blocks from the nightclub district. Magda liked to avoid it, because Congregation people tended to hang around there handing out leaflets. She wouldn’t be seen dead with even one of those dropkicks.
Except today, when she was supposed to be seen very much alive with every single one of them. Magda stared at the crowd that packed the Square when they drove past, looking for parking.
John parked three blocks away and they walked back to the Square together. Before they reached their destination, his fingers squeezed her arm a little harder than necessary. “I’m going to join Preacher,” he said. “Don’t disappoint him today, Magdalene. I’m sure I can trust you to behave yourself in this crowd.”
Magda gave him her most innocent look. “Would I go out of my way to disappoint my own father?”
“You know sometimes I think you’re not right in the head.” John released her arm as though his fingers had been burned. He walked into the crowd.
“Fuck you too,” Magda muttered at his back.
“Mags!” Joseph beckoned to her from the edge of the crowd.
Magda followed him into the press of knee length skirts, suits and collars. They pushed their way through to the fountain in the middle of the Square.
“I heard you got drunk and swore at Preacher,” Joseph said, when they were seated at the edge of the fountain.
Magda chuckled. “Now Joseph, does that sound like me?” She took a second look at him; the edge of an ugly, purplish bruise was just barely hidden by his sunglasses. “Your Daddy lay into you too?”
“Yeah, but what else is new?”
“You know technically you’re still a child. You could tell the police or something. They might give you another place to live.”
“Because that all worked for you, right? Come on, Mags, you’ve heard it as often as I have. The mayor wouldn’t do that. Not to his own son. You know what’s really fucked up? You’re an adult and you let Preacher keep beating on you. I turn eighteen next week. The minute I do, I’m out of here.” Joseph took off his glasses and showed her an eye that was swollen shut. “In the meantime, look at this pack of assholes. Look at them, Magda.”
Magda glanced around. Preacher had climbed up on a makeshift platform at the front of the square and was yelling bile down a microphone. The crowd shouted back. The placards passed from hand to hand. Adam and Satan featured together on far too many of them for her liking.
“If I were you I’d get out too,” Joseph said. “I had a friend at school for a while who wasn’t in the Congregation. He said the church is a cult. Do you know what happens in cults, Mags? The leader makes everybody commit suicide. It’s happened before.”
Magda watched Preacher and tried to imagine him making everyone commit suicide. She supposed he could if he wanted to. Most of the people in this square would jump off a cliff like lemmings for him.
“Hey.” Joseph leaned toward her. “I’m going to fuck this rally up.”
“Oh?” Magda gave him her full attention. She recalled she’d sold him black market firecrackers not so long ago. “Are you planning what I think you’re planning?”
“Probably. Go up front and pretend like you care what Preacher says. Wait ten minutes.” Joseph disappeared into the crowd.
Magda composed herself. It wouldn’t do to walk up there grinning like an over-excited clown. She pushed her way through the crowd and presented herself front and centre, just like Preacher wanted. She stood motionless in a line of bobbing, placard-waving, yelling fanatics. John was up there behind Preacher, taking charge of the microphones and sound. The Mayor was there too; Joseph’s father was a short, rounded, self-important creature who sat in the front row at church every Sunday and made long, boring speeches at every civic occasion. She’d seen him take to Joseph with a stick once, when nobody knew she was watching.
Preacher raised his hands. The audience hushed like a horde of well-trained puppies.
“I feel the presence of God here today!” he roared.
The crowd roared back.
When they quieted, he continued. “Today we begin our campaign in earnest. We, the Congregation of the Holy Bible, are determined! We have God on our side! We are the light of Hailstone, and we will rid this city of the Devil’s scourges that plague it! We will save each and every citizen from the evils of a Godless world! Today, we embark on the first step of a holy crusade. Today we demand that Hailstone become the first alcohol free city!”
The crowd roared approval. John pulled a rope; a three foot tall Hells Bells vodka poster unfurled on the wall behind Preacher.
The crowd hushed. “This is our enemy,” Preacher intoned. He lit a candle.
Magda pressed her hand to her mouth and wished she could disappear into the ground. She watched John splash the poster with the contents of a bottle of kerosene and wondered if anybody else saw that while Preacher made a big deal of the candle.
“This is the eternal light of God!” Preacher swept his arm out in the most melodramatic gesture Magda had seen from him yet and touched the candle to the poster.
The whole thing went up in flames.
The crowd stayed silent for three seconds. Then they roared themselves into a frenzy.
Preacher held up his hands. “We have a very special guest with us today,” he said, when quiet returned. “Allow me to welcome our Mayor, Joe Georgiou. He is, I’m happy to say, an ardent supporter of our cause. He will now say a few words.”
The mayor mounted the podium. His little round face gleamed with sweat. Magda didn’t listen to anything that came out of his mouth. She would have walked away, but Preacher looked at her. He held her pinned to her place with nothing more than that look and the threat it held.
But she stayed still. She refused to dance or sway or wave a placard. Even when John marched over to her and shoved a placard into her hand.
“...the City of Hailstone,” the Mayor concluded, and the robots around her cheered wildly.
Magda noticed the cameras for the first time. They were from Christian TV, the only Hailstone-based TV station. Preacher had a controlling share in the station, and for most Congregation households, it was the only TV anybody was allowed to watch.
The cameras turned away from the Mayor and panned the crowd. One pointed right at her. Of course it did. They wanted a shot of Preacher’s daughter supporting her father. Preacher had probably told them to.
She dropped her plac
ard, showed the camera a stiff middle finger and walked into the crowd.
Right on cue, there was a sound like a thunderclap in the middle of the Square. People already on the edge of religious hysteria ducked and screamed.
Magda stood where she was and grinned. Fireworks shot up over the fountain and exploded in the midday sky.
Pandemonium. Magda glanced over her shoulder; Preacher and John were far too busy trying to maintain calm to worry about her. She bolted through the crowd and down a side street.
It took a moment for the noise of the crowd to abate. Her ears buzzed. Her head throbbed, but only faintly. Magda lit a cigarette and leaned back against the wall of the alley. She wondered if Kat was somewhere in the crowd, getting all this action.
Her phone started to sing at her. Magda checked the screen, just to make sure it wasn’t Preacher. Adam’s name came up; she flipped it open. “Hey there.”
“Hello gorgeous! What are you doing?”
“Hiding in an alley from a pack of religious types who want to ban alcohol,” she said.
“Is that why you messaged me before?”
“Uh – huh. Adam this is some freaky shit. Preacher is starting to scare me.”
“Darling the man scared me from the first day I laid eyes on him. He wears a grey tie!”
“I’m serious Adam. They just burned a Hells Bells Vodka poster. Half their placards say you’re the devil.”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. He sighed in her ear. “Look, I know, sweetie. And I appreciate you looking out for me, but honestly, they’re not going to get far with their little campaign. Let them have their rally and get it out of their system. The rest of us will carry on regardless. Nobody’s going to ban Vodka, Hailstone’s entire economy would collapse. What do they think, they can give everyone I employ a job arranging flowers for the church?”
Magda giggled. “I guess.”
“Now do you want me to come and get you or what? There’s a big party on at Pantheon tonight.”
“No, don’t come out here. I’ll meet you somewhere else.” The back of her neck prickled. She turned around, but too late to prevent any damage being done.
John’s entire beard quivered. He took the phone from her. “Stay away from my wife.” He flipped it shut, then plucked the cigarette from Magda’s fingers and threw it away. “I knew Amanda couldn’t have cured you,” he said. “Nothing can cure the devil. I’m just sad Preacher believes your lies. It’s obvious you continue to smoke cigarettes. Do you still drink, too?”
Magda made a swipe for her phone. He held it out of her reach. “Tell me the truth,” he demanded. “What does Satan command of you? Are you committing adultery too? With this man?” He shook the phone when it started ringing again.
Magda snorted. “Why should you even care if I was? You can’t stand me!”
John dropped the phone and put his foot on it. “Tell me the truth.”
Magda eyed her phone. Her lifeline. Who cared? She could get another one. “What about you? Where do you go all the time, John? Have you got another wife hidden away somewhere? One who doesn’t turn your delicate stomach?”
He ground his heel into the phone. Magda winced, but as far as she could see, nothing broke. He was probably only scratching it up. The ringing continued and the cheeks above his beard went red, making him look like some kind of demented Santa Clause. “Who is he?” he yelled.
Magda decided to keep her cool. She kept his gaze so he’d know she wasn’t afraid. She took another cigarette out of her bag, lit it and took a deep drag. “Go fuck yourself, you fucking Jesus freak,” she said.
John had big hands. She’d never really noticed until that moment, when one hand smacked her across the face, sending her cigarette flying. The back of her head snapped into the wall. He grabbed a handful of her hair and pinned her there. John spoke into her ear in an ugly, thick voice she’d never heard from him before, but the shock of that voice was nothing to the shock of the blow. He’d never done that. Never. If he had, she’d have taken her gun and killed him with it.
“Your rebellion against me, Preacher and God stops now,” John hissed at her. “You’ll grow your hair long. You’ll learn to be a good wife and daughter. You’ll submit to Preacher’s teachings and my instructions. There’ll be no more cigarettes or alcohol or whoring yourself out to other men. You’ll become the woman Preacher promised me when I agreed to marry you.”
He let her go. Magda stumbled and fell on the street. She reached out, grabbed her phone off the ground and stuffed it into her bag.
“Understood?” John stood over her.
She nodded.
“Good.” He held out a hand.
Magda ignored the hand. She got to her feet on her own. She felt dizzy. The throbbing was out of control. She almost bolted out of the alley, but Preacher appeared behind John. She blinked; she couldn’t quite focus on him. Crap. Was she concussed again?
“That was very successful, despite the interruption,” Preacher said. He looked smug. “Come on, it’s time to go.”
Magda followed them down the alley. She did her best not to bump into the walls, although it wasn’t the easiest task. She barely noticed the distance, what with trying to stay upright, but when they reached the car she had to lean against it and take a rest. Preacher’s chatter hurt her ears.
“I see you took my advice on handling your wife, John,” he said. “It’s about time. I’ve never seen her this docile.”
Magda decided she’d have to shoot them both.
*
Magda sat in the corner of the couch, legs drawn up to her chest and arms wrapped around them. It was as far away from John as she could get without leaving the room, which apparently he didn’t trust her to do. No, he’d insisted they watch TV together and eat takeaway. She wondered why she wasn’t allowed to drink coffee, but it was perfectly alright for her husband to force feed her saturated fat masquerading as fried chicken.
It wasn’t even interesting TV. At least, it wasn’t interesting until 7.30, when John changed the channel to a news program on a commercial channel nobody was supposed to watch unless Preacher happened to be on it.
Magda leaned forward to see better over her knees. At least she could focus now. What a surprise, there was Preacher in the newsroom, dressed in a neat black suit, hair all slicked back, looking like the greedy old televangelist he aspired to be. Facing him on the opposite chair was Adam, who managed to make a tailored red and yellow suit look stylish. Magda rested her chin on her knees and smiled.
“That man is a disgrace to Hailstone,” John said.
Magda glanced at Preacher. “Isn’t he though.”
The newsreader, a serious-looking man dressed as soberly as Preacher, took a seat between them and looked into the camera. “Welcome to channel 39 News, I’m Peter Baker. Tonight we have with us the spokespeople for the two sides of an issue that appears to have split the city of Hailstone right down the centre. Preacher Semple, to my right, is the driving force behind a campaign to make Hailstone a dry city; Semple and his Congregation, who number in the thousands, believe alcohol is the source of a rising crime rate and social problems that plague the city. To my left is Adam Seymour, owner and spokesperson for Hells Bells Vodka, the business on which Hailstone was virtually built in the early twentieth century. Mr Seymour bought out the business five years ago and has since expanded it into export markets both around the country and internationally. Preacher Semple, Mr Seymour, good evening.”
Both men nodded. Adam winked at the camera. John grumbled under his beard; Magda smiled.
“Preacher Semple,” the newsreader said. “You claim the skyrocketing sales of Hells Bells vodka are the source of growing social problems throughout the city. What are you basing your claims on?”
Preacher cleared his throat. “Peter, these are not claims. These are facts. Every day members of my Congregation report to me the scourge they witness on the streets and sometimes in their own families. I myself have had
the trauma of witnessing my own daughter’s slide into alcohol addiction.”
Magda scowled.
“Crime rates all over the city are up,” Preacher continued. “People don’t feel safe. And it’s not just the alcohol that causes the problems, there’s also the promotion of immoral lifestyles.”
The newsreader cleared his throat. “Let’s keep on topic, shall we?” He turned to Adam. “Mr Seymour, what do you have to say in reply to Preacher Semple’s claims?”
Adam pursed his lips and took a moment to think. “Firstly Peter,” he said, “I’d like to give you some of my own facts and figures. Hells Bells Vodka employs exactly 9,085 people, directly and indirectly, representing about a third of the city’s population. We export our product all over the world, and the income from that returns directly to Hailstone to support not only all those jobs, but numerous private businesses. We also sponsor local charities and run four food vans in the city to support the homeless population.”
“Who wouldn’t be homeless if they had no alcohol,” Preacher interrupted.
“That’s not entirely true, Preacher,” Adam shot back. “People become homeless for a variety of reasons, among them the bigotry of families turning them out because they’re different. I wonder how many of those homeless have families that belong to your Congregation?”
“Every individual in my church is given the opportunity to mend their ways and lead a godly life,” Preacher said.
“And as for your crime statistics,” Adam continued, “I wonder what the statistics are on domestic violence that is not fuelled by alcohol in the city? I’m reliably informed there are more than a few wives and children in certain parts of the city suffering violence from husbands and fathers and too afraid to speak out because of church rules.”
“That’s an outrageous accusation!” Preacher’s eyes bugged. “Especially from someone who lives a filthy, immoral lifestyle like you! Once alcohol is removed from this city, your damaging influence over our children will be gone too!”
