by Kirk Alex
“I don’t imagine they get along too well with Bishop Biggs on account of the problem with the dogs going on his property. Can you blame the man for not liking it?”
Harold did not answer. Could not care less what Cecil Biggs liked or didn’t like. He picked up his wife’s Bible, walked outside and waited on their front porch.
Biggs’s gate was unlocked and open for those miserable few souls in the area who were permitted to go inside, who were desperate enough to turn to someone as odd as Cecil Omar Biggs for inspiration and worship. Harold was shaking his head. The man probably hated his guts because of the complaints he and his wife had made in the past, and now they were about to go calling, thanks in part to Marty Roscoe and his nutty wife. He never should have said a word about it to Fay, only it was past that; besides, the damn flyer had made it impossible for her to resist. There was no talking her out of it now. Follow through. Get it over with. Do something to please the woman; and he knew these little things that he did for her hardly made up for all the years she’d taken care of him and put up with his craziness, all the years she’d been a devoted wife and partner. The Better Half. She truly was that.
CHAPTER 254
Harold walked to the sidewalk. Called his wife. Fay eventually stepped out with cake in hand, the flyer Scotch-taped to the top of the pink box. Lordy, thought Harold. Lordy Lordy Lordy.
They walked to Biggs’s front yard. Made it through the open gate.
“Ain’t that the truth?”
“What’s that, Fay?”
Mrs. Crust indicated Biggs’s “billboard.” White letters on black background. Something about gossip being like a balloon, in that it had a way of growing with every puff.
Yeah, well, thought Harold. Like all them other sayings: it don’t amount to much. Sure, the words rang true. What if they did? Everybody had something slick to say these days, only they never had the character to live up to their clever slogans. Brain farts. All they was. Hell with it.
They made it to Biggs’s front door. Strains of Amazing Grace, coming from somewhere above, as played on an organ by unsteady hands, could be picked up.
Harold knocked. Kept knocking. Until Marvin R. Muck’s bandaged nose and bruised, bloodshot eyes appeared in the four-by-ten-inch slot in the door. He cased them over. Eyed the pink cake box in Fay Crust’s hands.
“Yeah?”
“What chu mean ‘Yeah?’”
“What I said, old dude: Yeah. Jus’ ’cause you a senile citizen, don’t mean you got to act like one.”
Fay Crust nudged her husband. Cleared her throat, as did Harold then.
“Just a neighborly visit from a couple of ‘Senile Citizens.’ Me and the missus would like to say hello to His Highness, the Bishop.”
“That right? Unless you invite’, you can’t get in. Security be the reason. Some crazy mofo out there be wantin’ to pop Cecil. That be from the donkey’ own mouf. If you ain’t got invite by Bishop Bigg’—you ain’t gettin’ in. Got to have a pure heart, got to be a true believer—and Bishop be the onliest judge of that.”
“I can dig it.”
Harold Crust took his wife by the elbow, eager to leave. Fay Crust was not going anywhere. Held up the box the cake was in. Leaflet taped to it.
“But we were invited. I baked this cake especially for the Bishop. Won’t you be so kind as to let him know that we’re here at least and would like to see him?”
“Best not be no ‘Baby Ruth’ in that pink box.”
“I beg your pardon, young man?”
“You ain’t got to play no game wiff us. We know what be goin’ down these day’.”
“Expected as much from the lowlife.”
“Who you callin’ ‘lowlife, nigga?’”
“If the shoe fits.”
“What if it don’t?”
“Please, Harold.”
“Redneck be the one, then. Left a paper bag by this here door wiff a big turd in it. Bishop don’t want nothin’ to do wiff the racist cracker and the dude be actin’ nasty about it. Mofo be jealous, is what. Why I be akskin’ what you got in the pink box.”
“Like I said, you’re talking out both sides of your mouth, buddy. Let’s go, Fay. Please. We don’t need this.”
“Harold, no. My mind is made up.”
“All you got to do is aks Omar. Aks the Bishop, if you think I be jivin’. Roscoe be the one doin’ all kinda crazy ass shit like that. Makin’ obscene phone call’ and leavin’ turd’ for us to step in. Dude ain’t right. Wilburn Flinger be the other one: givin’ peep’ the finger all the time.”
There was no hiding the fact Fay Crust was put off. “Sir, your language.”
Harold was irked as much, if not more so. His lady deserved better. Lowlife was behaving like a punk if front of his missus.
“You ain’t got to disrespect folks that way. Ain’t no call for it.”
Marvin cleared his throat. At a loss, if briefly.
“What kind of cake you got there, man?”
“Home-baked fruitcake.”
“Home-bake’? Lemme talk to Brotha Trusty, then. See what the man say. He the one call’ the shot’. Wait right there. Don’t go nowheres.”
CHAPTER 255
Marvin slapped the slot shut. Knocked on the door to the living room. Got the go-ahead to enter, and did.
There was a dresser with a mirror to the left of where Marvin stood. It was similar to the one Biggs had in his bedroom—in that it was battered and hopeless, just as all the furniture was in the United Christian Church of Re-Newed Hope.
Biggs was standing in front of the mirror in his long, Rasputin the Mad Monk robe and he was carefully running a plastic comb through his hair.
There was no ignoring that more and more silver strands had begun to appear at both temples and chin. His hair was thinning up around the crown.
He found a hand mirror inside the dresser. Held it in back of his head over the area. He’d been in denial about it for months. Now there was nothing to do but come to terms with it. Accept it. Hair was thinning and further reminded him that the bar code was a little more visible this time, the bar code tattoo and the digits directly below it, apropos of something he was presently not prepared to consider.
Maybe it was time to start dying his hair, or else cut it all off like he used to do. Save “coin” that way, to use Marvin’s expression.
Would be able to stay out of barber shops and not have to deal with the mindless chatter and inquiries regarding his life and business, regarding his Caddy or Rolls and what he did for a living.
Only drawback: a shaved skull tended to scare some of the bitches right off, before he’d even had a chance to so much as utter a single word to them—about anything. Also, there was that crater in his forehead—and the best way to compensate for it was with hair, or else go with headgear: cap or biretta, although a cap was not always admissible or even possible, depended on the situation, and the biretta did not always work as well as he wished.
Biggs placed the second-hand biretta he’d picked up for a buck-fifty at a Saugus swap meet a while back atop his head.
Made him look like the real thing. “Official.” A Bishop should look like one. Best dollar-fifty he’d ever spent.
“What was all the chatter out there?”
Muck let him know about the fruitcake and who was at their front door.
“Oh yeah?”
“Made sure there was no turd in the pink box, me.”
Biggs response was something close to a frown, but not quite.
“Wouldn’t want them senile fool’ in here anyway. ’Cause you know all they be doin’ is snoopin’, like them dirty Roscoe K-9 and ‘Finger-Lickin’ Flinger, ‘specially that four-eye’ cake-bakin’ ugly old ho Fay. Bet you anything Redneck Romeo an’ that big culo pig of his put them up to it. Bet my last damn dollar, too, if I had me a dollar to bet wiff.”
“I’ll have to have my hair trimmed.” Continuing to employ the mirror, Biggs made minor, but valid adjustments with
the biretta. “Or just shave my head, save a few bucks.”
“They waitin’.”
“You said something about a fruitcake.”
“Baked it herself. Fay did.”
“Fruitcake?”
“What they said.”
“People like to badmouth fruitcake. I never have. In fact, I like it. I like fruitcake, so long as they’re not implying anything by it.”
“How you mean?”
“Our food taster would like to take a look at this cake before we can allow them entry. That’s what you tell them.”
“Say what?”
“Without offending them, if you can manage. Bring the cake in here.”
“What if they don’t be likin’ it and don’t want to part wiff the fruitcake?”
“Fuck them, then.”
CHAPTER 256
Muck left. Was back shortly, with the fruitcake in his hands. Biggs placed it in the mini fridge, and stepped into the hallway.
“Let the good people in, why don’t you, Brother Marvin. After all, we did invite them. Have them come upstairs. Let’s show them that not only is there an actual congregation and that this is a place of worship, but that we have a board of trustees, even a staff.”
“Board of trustee’?” Marvin followed him into the hallway. “You serious? I don’t be gettin’ it, man,”
“It’s good PR, Free Ride.” Biggs locked the door to the living room behind him. “What’s the point in sending out flyers to potentially interested parties if we refuse them entry when they appear at our doorstep?”
“Don’t be my idea to give ’em flyer. They ain’t nothin’ but snooper’. Spreadin’ gossip. Like everybody else.”
Biggs paused in the foyer area at the door that led to stairs to the second floor. Then had a second thought. Decided, instead, to use the door at the other end of the hallway.
“Give me enough time to get up there.”
Marvin continued to stare at him with a quizzical expression. As far as he was concerned, Crusts was bein’ nosy, period. Nothin’ else to it.
Biggs grinned. “It will help dispel some of the rumors. Let them take a look. After all, this is supposed to be a church, is it not? Let them in. We have no fear, do we?”
Muck’s response was to shrug. Wasn’t sure.
“Your show. All I be is stage manager.”
Biggs walked to the opposite end of the hallway. Unlocked a door across the way from the kitchen, entered, and locked it after him. Marvin stepped up to the front entrance and undid the latch. Opened the door, and Mr. and Mrs. Crust stepped in.
CHAPTER 257
As Marvin R. Muck led them up the stairwell to the second floor, past coins and folding money that lined the walls and ceiling, a sign declaring THE LORD PROVIDES, another encouraging to ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE, the organ music faded and Biggs’s own booming voice could be heard coming from the Prayer Hall.
“Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? For they weep before me, saying ‘Give us meat that we may eat!’”
He paused. Cleared his throat.
The deacon guided the dumbfounded Crusts inside the room nearly crowded with staff and members of the board, as well as a small group of parishioners in clothes well worn and ill fitting. Crutches were in evidence, a quad cane, walker. Several shaved heads with various tats of swastikas or crucifixes or both. Some audience members were in their late teens, others middle-aged. There were a couple of bag ladies and alkies in their seventies with half-open eyes and spittle in the corners of their hanging jaws. They sat in folding chairs and an assortment of patio or porch benches. Some made of wood, others plastic or wrought iron, lined up in rows like pews.
Harold and his wife took it in. Stood there in shock, as their nervous eyes shifted over to what passed for the altar. There was a battered organ and a withered old woman who dozed in a wheelchair, head hung back, with drool oozing from the agape mouth. Various rag dolls stained with grime and what appeared to be dry red paint or something else dangled from the backrest.
They could not help noticing the lectern, or what passed for one: three weather-beaten fruit or vegetable crates stacked length-wise, one on top of the other. What evidently held it all together were a couple of pickets with cracked and peeling gray paint, ages old, and crudely fashioned into a cross.
Lying on its side on the dais to the right of the ridiculous crates, was something that somewhat resembled an actual lectern. This, too, appeared having been built, or in the process of being built, from mismatched old boards.
The scene made little sense to them. Beside the unfinished lectern lying on the floor, were a couple of sawhorses with planks laid across. Beyond that, in back of where Biggs stood, that stretched from floor to ceiling, was a large cross made from four by fours. This, too, was time-worn, warped, having been sloppily varnished and/or painted over bent nails and knots. Not only was the crucifix way too small for the imposing cross it was attached to, but chipped in so many places that whole ceramic chunks were missing and the rest craved serious dusting, better yet: wiping down, cleaning.
None of it made much sense to Harold and his wife. Biggs had money, no secret there, yet lived like a pauper and did very little to keep his church up.
Fay Crust intended to sit in anyway. They were here now, were they not? One respected the Lord, less than ideal surroundings or not. She took her own Bible that Harold had been holding for her.
She spied a couple of vacant seats in the front row. Sat in one of them. Harold remained standing. Hesitant to do as his wife had done. Wanted to leave more than anything. There was the smell. Strong odor was more like it. Feared it might make him vomit. Only there was no way out, not really. Couldn’t leave Fay behind by herself with this strange bunch. Christ, why’d he have to come? Fay, Fay. God help him. He followed suit: took a seat next to his spouse.
CHAPTER 258
Bishop Biggs picked up from where he had left off: read from the open Bible that lay atop the shoddy lectern as though he were not particularly aware of the new arrivals.
“‘So if Thou are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Thy sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness.’ The Lord therefore said to Moses, ‘Gather for Me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and their officers and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. Then I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit who is upon you, and will put Him upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you shall not bear it all alone. And say to the people, Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept in the ears of the Lord, saying, Oh that someone would give us meat to eat! For we were well-off in Egypt. Therefore the Lord will give you meat and you shall eat. You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you; because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before Him, saying, Why did we ever leave Egypt?’”
Cecil looked up briefly, nodded toward the Crusts with a smile, then, revealing the page the next passage was on, proceeded: “‘I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you. Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check. Otherwise they will not come near to you. Many are the sorrow of the wicked; but he who trusts in the Lord, loving-kindness shall surround him. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice you righteous ones, and shout for joy all you who are upright in heart.’” The bishop topped it off with a soft amen, and closed the Book. He strolled down toward Harold and Fay Crust, eager to shake hands and welcome them to his church.
“We used to do this more often; three times a week, in fact—Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays—gather this way. If I didn’t always give a full sermon, we discussed the Bi
ble, we discussed matters of importance—namely the Lord and the importance of leading a Christian life, a pure life, a clean life.”
CHAPTER 259
They were introduced to some of the members; and while Fay Crust responded in kind, and while her husband Harold pretended to have as much enthusiasm for it, he had a difficult time dealing with the strange odor, and finally Harold Crust’s expression gave him away. Biggs picked up on it.
“It’s our chef. Greta Otto. Dear Greta, she means well—but does at times burn her cooking. It really isn’t her fault. We have a rather old stove that we use downstairs in the kitchen. In fact, that’s where we normally feed our regular people, board of directors, and staff; the accommodations are better suited for that. But we’ve had such a generous turn out today that we decided, as a matter of convenience, to simply serve everyone in this room instead. What we could really use is about a dozen microwave ovens . . . when you consider the endless parade of empty bellies we do our very best to fill.”
“Why not just go out and buy them?” Harold Crust suggested good-naturedly. “You can afford it—if you can afford a Rolls and a Cadillac.”
“The Rolls is not what you think. Got it cheap many, many years ago. It’s a ’72, and the Cadillac, well, the Cadillac belongs to the church. The church is kind enough to permit me to use it on occasion.”
“Rough, ain’t it? I can relate to that. Got an old Falcon myself.”
“Their deeds will not allow them to return to their God,” stammered Miss Betty Lou Rutterschmidt from her wheelchair. “For a spirit of harlotry is within them, And they do not know the Lord.” Miss Betty’s daughter Mildred Elizabeth cradled a doll that she had wrapped in newsprint with black-and-white pornographic images. Cecil had no idea how she had gotten hold of the newspaper.
