The Rift

by Walter Jon Williams

  Rails Bluff, however, envied even the folks in the Delta, and sat on its ridge above the Delta like a jealous stepsister gazing down at a favored natural child. The county line ran just below the town on its bluff, and all the tax revenue from the rich bottom land went elsewhere. It was as if God, while showering riches on everyone in the Delta, had waved a hand at everyone above the bluff and said, “Thou shalt want.” In the Delta, many people were poor, and a few were rich. In Rails Bluff, nobody was rich. Now that a Wal-Mart superstore had opened in the next county, things in Rails Bluff had grown worse. The hardware store had just gone under, and the clothing store was hanging on by its fingernails. If the world did not end soon, Frankfand thought, Rails Bluff might well anticipate the Apocalypse and vanish all on its own.

  The truck drove past an old drive-in theater, grass growing thick between the speaker stanchions, and then passed into town. Sheryl pulled into the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly, and Frankland saw that Reverend Garb was already waiting, standing with one of his deacons, a man named Harvey, and a smiling, excited crowd of young people, members of his youth association.

  Garb was a vigorous man in gold-rimmed spectacles, pastor of Jesus Word True Gospel, the largest local black church. The kids—all boys between the ages of twelve and eighteen—were all neatly dressed in dark slacks and crisp white shirts. Garb and Harvey added ties to the uniform. All wore white armbands.

  Frankland hopped out of the pickup and shook Garb’s hand. “Glad you could make it, Brother Garb.” He looked at Garb’s youth brigade. “I hope my parishioners give us such a good turnout.”

  “I’m sure they will, Brother Frankland. Some are here already.”

  Frankland looked at the rows of cars and trucks parked at the Piggly Wiggly, saw familiar faces emerging. He greeted his parishioners as they approached, heartened by their numbers. As he was talking to one of his deacons, a battered old 1957 Chevy pickup, rust red and primer gray, rolled off Main Street into the parking lot, a big man at the wheel. There was a gun rack in the truck’s rear window with an old lever-action Winchester resting in it. Frankland walked toward the pickup truck to greet its driver. Pasted on the back window was a sticker that read trust in god and the second amendment.

  “Hey, Hilkiah,” said Frankland.

  “Hey, pastor,” Hilkiah said cheerfully.

  Hilkiah Evans stepped out of the truck. He was a tall man with broad shoulders, powerful arms, and a pendulous gut. His prominent nose had been broken over most of his face, and his arms were covered with tattoos. The old ones, the skulls and daggers and the

  Zig-Zag man that dated from his time in prison, were getting blurry with age as the ink began to run—a contrast to the later tattoos, the face of Jesus and the words “Jesus is Lord,” which were sharp and clear. A naked woman, prominent on his left bicep, had been transformed into an angel through the addition of a pair of wings and a halo.

  Hilkiah was one of Frankland’s success stories. After his second stretch for armed robbery, Arthur Evans had been introduced to Frankland by a member of his church, Eliza Tomkins, who was also his parole officer. Though Arthur had at first resisted Frankland’s efforts to get his mind straight, it was clear that Eliza had detected a void in the man, a void that needed to be filled with belief and with the Light. And, by and by, Arthur had listened, and as a mark of his conversion had changed his name to Hilkiah. Now he was one of Frankland’s stalwarts, a deacon and a tireless organizer. He had joined the Apocalypse Club and purchased a two years’ supply of food, although he’d had to do it on credit. Though he always had to scrape to make ends meet and was always working at least two jobs in the community, Hilkiah nevertheless donated much of his time to work at the radio station, to helping with church projects, with the youth and outreach programs.

  And of course with the Christian Gun Club. He had given a great many young parishioners their first lessons in the use of a firearm.

  His involvement with the Gun Club was, technically, illegal and a violation of his parole. But since his parole officer was also a member of Frankland’s congregation, she had decided to ignore the technicalities.

  Besides, it was ridiculous to tell someone in a place like Rails Bluff that he couldn’t own a gun, even if he was a convicted armed robber. Sometimes the law was just silly.

  “Hope I’m not late,” Hilkiah said.

  “Not at all. I’ve barely got here myself.”

  Hilkiah reached into the bed of his truck and lifted up a large Coleman cooler. “I brought some Gatorade. Thought people might get thirsty in this heat.”

  “Bless you, Brother Hilkiah,” Frankland said. He should have thought of that himself. Hilkiah set up the cooler on the tailgate of his truck along with some plastic cups. Reverend Garb came over to shake hands with Hilkiah, and then he turned to Frankland.

  “Shall we get started?” he asked. “Or are we waiting for someone?” Frankland glanced along the road. “I was expecting Dr. Calhoun,” he said. “Maybe we should wait a few more minutes.”

  Garb glanced toward Bear State Videoramics. “There’s Magnusson standing in the door,” he said. “He doesn’t look so happy to see us.”

  “He that seeketh mischief,” Hilkiah said, “it shall come unto him.”

  “The way of transgressors is hard,” said Garb, skipping a little further in the Book of Proverbs. There was a silence while the others waited for Frankland to produce a quote, but Frankland’s mind spun its gears while it groped through its limited stock of citations, and it was Hilkiah who finally filled the silence with “A wicked man is loathsome, and committed to shame.”

  “’Scuse me, teidy bear,” said Sheryl. “You forgot something.” Sheryl approached and tied a white band around his arm. “Thanks, honey love,” said Frankland.

  “I’m going to go back to the studio and check up on Roger,” Sheryl said. “I’ll be back at ten o’clock to pick you up, okay?”

  “Okay,” Frankland said. They kissed, and she walked to the truck. Roger was the boy volunteer they had minding the radio station—not a big job, because all he had to do was load the tapes of prerecorded programs—but Roger was fourteen, and Sheryl didn’t want to leave him alone with complicated equipment for too long a stretch of time.

  “The Lord gave you a good woman, there,” Garb said with a smile.

  “Don’t I know it,” said Frankland.

  The rear wheels of the Ford spat gravel as it wheeled out of the parking lot, horn tooting. Another auto horn answered, and Frankland saw Dr. Lucius Calhoun boom into the parking lot in his Oldsmobile, waving from the window with his left arm as he spun the wheel with his right. He was followed by a regular convoy of vehicles, and as they drove into the parking lot they all began to sound their horns, a joyous noise unto the Lord.

  “Sorry to be late,” Calhoun said as he popped out of his car. He was a young man, short and vigorous, barely thirty though already bald on top, with a ginger mustache and a broad grin. He shook Frankland’s hand and Garb’s.

  “We were planning on coming in the bus,” he said. “We had bus-sized banners and everything. But that ol’ fuel pump started kicking up again, so we had to convoy down.”

  Dr. Calhoun seemed to spend as much time waging war with his church bus as he did fighting the Devil. Frankland had always enjoyed the stories of Calhoun’s travails.

  On the other hand, the Pentecostal Church could at least afford a bus. At Frankland’s outfit, all the money went into the radio station and the bunkers of survival supplies.

  “Shall we get started?” Frankland said.

  Each pastor organized his own flock, handing out signs that said PORNOGRAPHY ATTACKS THE FAMILY or RAILS BLUFF FAMILY VALUES CAMPAIGN or FIRST AMENDMENT DOES NOT PROTECT FILTH.

  Some of the children had signs that said protect me from smut.

  Bear State Videoramics, to its disgrace, had been renting pornographic videos out of its back room. And, to the disgrace of the community, this had apparently been going on for s
ome time. Action was clearly required. The world would end soon, and Frankland did not wish Rails Bluff to acquire more than its necessary share of the divine wrath.

  Frankland had an idea about how to deal with these sorts of situations. He could, of course, gather signatures on a petition, and lobby and persuade the county council to pass an ordinance against pornography, but then the ordinance would immediately become the subject of legal contention—the Civil Liberties Union, or other secular satanist busybodies, might intervene, and lawyers would cost the county money, and the thing could drag on for years without resolution, and in the meantime Eric Magnusson would still be peddling porn.

  So quicker action was called for. A stern warning from the guardians of the community. A picket line, a public protest, and a call for a boycott.

  Hit him where it hurts, Frankland thought. Right in the pocketbook. Magnusson couldn’t be making that much money as it was—nobody in Rails Bluff was making money. Magnusson couldn’t afford to lose much business.

  And the best part was, even the Civil Liberties Union agreed that picket lines and civil protest were just fine. Just citizens exercising their rights to state their opinion.

  “Don’t reckon you’re going to give up this foolishness anytime soon, huh?” said Magnusson. Frankland looked up from tying a white band on the arm of one of his Sunday School class. The owner of Bear State Videoramics stood above him, red-gold hair gleaming in the setting sun, a scowl on his long Swedish face.

  “I reckon not,” Frankland said.

  “What’s the problem?” Magnusson said. “I’ve got a right to earn a living.”

  “You’re not allowed to earn a living by poisoning the community,” Frankland said. “Somebody might pay you to put cyanide in the water, but that doesn’t mean you should take the money.” Magnusson scowled. “I don’t sell to no kids,” he said, “so I don’t know why you got kids here. They’ll find out more about porn from you than from me.”

  “They’ll know to avoid it,” Garb said. He had walked over from where he had been organizing his youth association members.

  “I won’t stay in business without the back room,” Magnusson insisted. “You want another business to close in this town? What about my family?”

  “The righteous,” said Garb, “eat to the satisfaction of their soul; but the belly of the wicked shall want.”

  “Vileness shall meet with requital, and loud shall be the lamentations thereof,” Frankland said, his mind spitting out the quote before his tongue could put a stop to it. He had to admit he had no idea whether the verse was actually in the Bible or not, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Garb’s eyes flicker as he tried to identify the quote.

  Magnusson only looked grim. He glanced over the assembling parishioners and nodded to himself. “I see some of my best customers here,” he said. “People who rent from the back room a lot. You want their names?” He looked at Frankland. “What’s that quote, from the Bible? About the beam in the eye messing up your view, or something?”

  Garb seemed troubled by this revelation, but Frankland knew the answer. “They would not have sinned,” he said, “if you had not provided the means.”

  “Oh yeah. It’s all my fault. Blame the lusts of the world on me.” He waved his arms. “If they don’t get the stuff from me, they’ll get it on mail order.”

  He stalked back to his store. Frankland watched him go in satisfaction.

  “It’s working,” he said, and smiled.

  Calhoun approached, a broad grin on his face. “Shall we start with a prayer?” he said. The demonstration went well. A number of people, heading into the parking lot with the obvious intention of renting a video from Bear State Videoramics, saw the demonstrators, their friends and neighbors, circling in front of the store with their signs, sometimes chanting slogans and sometimes singing hymns. The customers would usually hesitate, then shy away.

  There were a few exceptions. A couple young men, obviously drunk, made an elaborate show of renting some pornographic videos, which they waved at Frankland as they got back in their Jeep and sped away. A few other adults came into the store to return videos, and a couple stayed to make other rentals, conspicuously from the family section.

  But for a Friday night, Frankland figured, Magnusson’s business was lousy. The protest was really hitting him in the pocketbook.

  “It’s working,” he told Dr. Calhoun as they fell into step.

  “For one night, anyway,” Calhoun said. Calhoun grinned up at him and wiped sweat from his bald head.

  “By the way, Reverend,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about your radio address the other day. What was that term you used? ‘Rapture wimp’ was it?”

  Frankland felt heat rise to his face. “I do apologize, Dr. Calhoun,” he said. “The Spirit was in me pretty strong at the time—but I should have chosen more appropriate language.”

  Calhoun gave a chuckle. “Well, I’d like to think I’m not a wimp. I just happen to believe that there isn’t necessarily an interval between the Rapture and the Second Coming.”

  “I believe I explained my reasoning in that radio speech,” Frankland said.

  “But what about the Bema Judgment?” Calhoun said.

  And Calhoun and Frankland then had a pleasant time, for the next hour or so, arguing back and forth about the Tribulation, the Bema Judgment as opposed to the Krino Judgment, the Twenty-Four Elders, Christ’s Bride in Heaven, the Judgment of the Gentiles, the role of the 144,000 Jews, and other significant matters pertaining to the end of the world.

  They were interrupted by the publisher of the local weekly paper, who interviewed the leaders of the protest as well as Magnusson. Frankland had a feeling the coverage would be favorable, as the publisher was a member of Dr. Calhoun’s congregation.

  The only real sour note came later, when the pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Pete Swenson, turned up to rent a video. He crossed the parking lot slowly, a thoughtful frown on his beefy Swedish face, hands in the pockets of his chinos. He nodded at Frankland and Garb, walked into Bear State Videoramics, and could be seen having a long conversation with Magnusson. Hilkiah approached, clenching his tattooed fists.

  “G—” he began, then corrected himself. “Dad-blame that squarehead, anyway.”

  “I can’t figure him out,” said Calhoun.

  A good third of the inhabitants of the community were the descendants of a colony of Swedish and Norwegian immigrants that had been planted here in the 1880s. A great many of the members of the commercial class, such as it was, bore Swedish names. The lofty red brick Church of the Good Shepherd, sitting next to the immaculate green lawn of the immigrant cemetery, was the largest of the area’s churches, and the oldest.

  And the Swedes’ attitude was different. It just was, and Frankland didn’t understand it. Why Swenson wouldn’t stand with the community against pornography, why he didn’t participate in the Love Offering Picnic, why he didn’t urge his flock to join the Christian Gun Club with their children—why wouldn’t a minister do these obvious things, which were so clearly a part of his duty?

  Swenson left the video store and nodded at Frankland again as he shambled toward his car. There was a tape of Spartacus in his hand.

  “Well,” Frankland said finally, as Swenson drove away. “Those Lutherans, they’re pretty close to being Catholics, you know.”

  Calhoun and Hilkiah looked at him and nodded.

  That probably explained it.

  The stock market was going mad, the President thought, and all because Sam made a weird face on television. Some days he just loved his job.

  “We need a full-court press on this issue,” he said. “Point out that the market is bearing out what the Administration has said all along.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Stan Burdett. His spectacles glittered. He knew just how to handle something like this.

  “Maybe the First Lady can say something in her speech in Atlanta tonight.”

  “I’ll t
alk to Mrs. Grayson about it.”

  There was the sound of a door opening. “Mr. President.” The President’s secretary entered the Oval Office—without knocking, the first time ever. “Something’s just happened.” There was a stricken look on her face.

  The President saw the look and felt his heart turn over. For a moment he pictured the First Lady in a plane crash, his children in the sights of assassins…

  “What happened?” he said, and tried to control the tremor that had risen in his voice.

  “I called Judge Chivington’s office to make your golf appointment for next week.” His secretary’s lip trembled. “The judge is dead, sir. He passed away in his office about ten minutes ago. The paramedics are still there, but they say they can’t revive him.”

  The President began to breathe again. Relief warred with sorrow in his mind, and then with shame at his being glad it was the judge and not his family.

  “I thought the judge would bury us all,” he said, and then his voice tripped over the sudden ache in his throat.

  Judge Chivington gone. The judge had been such a constant in the President’s life, from the very beginning of his career to the present, that he had truly never pictured his life without the man. He looked at his secretary, then at Stan. “Could you leave me alone for a while, please?” he managed.

  “Yes, sir,” Stan said.

  The others left in silence. The President turned his chair to the tall windows behind him, to the roses ranked in the garden beyond.

  It was like losing a father, he thought.

  Judge Chivington had been one of the greats. Legislator, jurist, advisor to the powerful. One of the few things that the President could absolutely rely on throughout his life.

  The President would see that the judge was properly recognized as he began his trip to the beyond. A funeral in the National Cathedral, a procession of Washington’s great orators from the pulpit, a choir that spat holy fire.