Cursed Be the Child

by Mort Castle

  Warren said he was more likely to visit Uganda than Grove Corner Presbyterian, thank you very much. Okay, if she wanted to go and thought she needed a fix of socially acceptable American voodoo, that was just fine. But for him, “Well, if God exists, then I’ve worked out a deal with him.”

  She said, “What’s that?” knowing he expected her to ask.

  She braced herself for what was coming, blaming herself for bringing up the subject in the first place.

  Warren said, “I stay out of God’s house, and He’d damned well better stay out of mine.”

  She wished he had not said that.

  — | — | —

  Two: o Drom Le Vila

  The Way of Dark Spririt

  A number of years ago, a scholar of ethnology, working on his PhD dissertation, sought out the Rawnie, the great lady, Pola Janichka. He’d learned of her fame as a storyteller and wished to include a number of her Darane Swature in his work. He thought the swature would illustrate archetypal themes.

  When he explained what he wanted to Pola Janichka, she told him she was sorry, but she could not provide him a single swato. He tried to convince the Rawnie of the scholarly value of his work, but she refused. Swature were not meant to be written down. A swato must be spoken, coming from the heart so that it can reach the heart. When one heart touches another, the truth is shared.

  This is a swato of Pola Janichka:

  “Once a boy, a chavo, went into the deep woods to check the snares of his father. As his father had set out many snares, it would take no small time for this task, so the boy took with him food and water. He took with him three coins, since one can get along in the world with little money, but not without any money. To pass the time, he had in his pocket his favorite toys, a lead soldier and a tiny whistle carved from the bone of a hedgehog by his uncle. This was all he had with him when he went into the deep woods.

  “Late in the morning, the boy realized that he was lost, far from the kumpania. Naxdaran, he told himself, do not fear. He had water, he had food, he had money, he had toys, and though this was all he had, what more did a child need? He would eat now and drink, and then he would pray to O Del, the good God, to show him the way out of the woods. With this thought, he seated himself, his back against a tree.

  “But before he could eat and drink, and sadly, before he could offer up any prayer to O Del, the boy felt a great tiredness, and his eyes closed, and he slept.

  “And when he awoke, there were children gathered about him in a circle.

  “Had the chavo been older and therefore wiser, he might have seen that these were not ordinary children.

  “There was a sadness in their eyes that was not the sadness known by living children. But the chavo had known little sadness in his own life, so he could not understand. There was a paleness to their faces that was not caused by the sickness or fear known by living children, but the chavo had always been glowing with health and he’d seldom known fear, so he could not understand. Indeed, there was much about them that was mulano, ghostly, but the chavo recognized none of it.

  “He did not know these were not living children, not juvindo, but detlene; they were the spirits of dead children.

  “Then all together the detlene held out their hands. And then all together, they spoke. ‘Help us! Share with us! Be generous! Be kind! Help us!’

  “The chavo laughed. These children had come to beg, mong, from him, as he himself had often begged from others!

  “Though he was not old enough to be wise, the chavo had a good heart. He said, ‘I have money I will share with you.’

  “All together, the detlene replied, ‘We have no need for money.’

  “The chavo said, ‘I have water I will share with you.’

  “All together, the detlene replied, ‘We have no need for water.’

  “The chavo said, ‘I have food I will share with you.’

  “All together, the detlene replied, ‘We have no need for food.’

  “The chavo said, ‘I have toys I will share with you.’

  “All together, the detlene replied, ‘We have no need for toys.’

  “‘I am sorry, then,’ said the chavo. ‘There is nothing I can give you. There is nothing I can do for you. When I came into the woods, I took with me money, food, water, and toys, that is all. I have nothing else.’

  “All together, the detlene replied, ‘Yes, you do. There is something else.’

  “‘What is it that I have?” asked the chavo, ‘that I can share with you? What is it that you want? What do I have that you need?’

  “All together, the detlene replied, ‘You have life. That is what you can give to us. That is what we need.’”

  — | — | —

  Eleven

  With only a touch of make-up, in a yellow dress and hat that had been chain department store fashionable a few seasons earlier, there was nothing to distinguish Emerald Farmer from other worshippers in True Witness Church. She’d not spoken to anyone, but her slight New York accent would not have attracted undue attention. True Witness Church had known visitors from all across the United States, indeed, from the entire world. They’d come with afflictions of mind, body, and soul to Mt. Franklin, Alabama, to Reverend Evan Kyle Dean’s home church, so that Reverend Dean might cast out foul spirits of sickness and torment, make them healed and whole, and grant them a miracle.

  There hadn’t been many outsiders recently, because it had been nearly a year since Evan Kyle Dean had conducted a healing service. He had not been on a crusade for two years and, for the past three months, even his television program, Witness to Wonder, was in reruns. Yet every Sunday, he preached at True Witness.

  Though Emerald Farmer had an incurable, fatal disease, she had not come to True Witness this Sunday to ask for healing. She already thought of herself as dead, dead like Randy, the man she had loved. She had no interest in hearing Dean preach what he called the “Word of God.” If there were a God, and He allowed phony bastards like Evan Kyle Dean to speak for Him, then He was either a cruel monster or a damned fool.

  Just as she had the previous two Sundays, Emerald Farmer had come to church today simply to look at Dean, to let the actuality of his existence feed her hatred so that when the time came she would not falter. She would kill him.

  And when her brain issued the command, “Yes! Now!” she was ready. There was the gun in her purse. But that wasn’t how she’d planned it, nor the way she wanted it. She needed to talk to him and tell him why he was going to die. What would the sanctimonious bullshit artist look like when he knew God wasn’t going to miraculously turn a Colt .38 into a plowshare, when he realized it was the dust to dust route, that dead was dead and that was it? She wanted him to be afraid, as afraid as the pathetic hopefuls who’d sought his help and were deceived by their own fear and his conniving.

  As Evan Kyle Dean took the pulpit for his sermon, Emerald Farmer stared at him and wondered if he could feel the boiling waves of her loathing.

  “I want to talk to you about God,” Evan Kyle Dean said. With a half-smile, he paused to set up the tag line. “Seems only right. After all, I am a preacher and this is the Sabbath, the day He has set aside so we might worship Him and contemplate His commandments.” The words were flowing smoothly. Evan hoped this time it would be right. It had not been right for months, and, he had to admit, it was getting worse—much worse.

  Six feet tall, angular as an archetypal frontiersman, Evan Kyle Dean at 40 still looked like a country boy. Five years earlier, when he’d first met with Marvin Michelson, founder and president of the Christian Communications Consortium, to discuss the program that would become Witness to Wonder, Michelson had told him “You’re a natural for TV, Brother Evan. You have the right image.”

  “How’s that?” Evan wanted to know.

  “You look like you could be Andy Griffith’s younger brother.”

  Live and in person, Evan Kyle Dean seemed more craggy and rough-cut than he did on television. There were grayish circl
es beneath his eyes that make-up would have camouflaged were he before the camera. And he was doing something he never did on TV; he was sweating. There was a chill ring of perspiration just under his collar, a film on his upper lip and forehead.

  He felt cold, felt he had to keep his muscles tight so that he didn’t start shaking uncontrollably.

  He was freezing and, it was grimly funny, he thought, that Marvin Michelson had called him “cool” at that initial meeting. “You see, Brother Evan, you’re a cool personality, in the McLuhanesque sense of the word. Low-key and nonthreatening. That makes you well-suited to video and the electronic ministry.”

  “I’m sorry,” Evan said. “I don’t understand.”

  “You communicate, Brother Evan,” Michelson explained. “You don’t shout at people.” Michelson grinned. “Just between the two of us, Brother Evan, the CCC’s somewhat overstocked with screamers, even though they give us the deep South demographics and contributions that keep our stations on the air. Let’s say, though, you’re a young man from a cosmopolitan city like San Francisco. You’ve been to college, you’re married, doing well at your job, but you sense there’s something missing in your life. You with me so far, Brother Evan?”

  “I think so.”

  “So you’re ready to ask God into your heart, and, then you happen to turn to a CCC station after the late night movie. Here’s a man bouncing around like he’s on a trampoline. He’s got a plaid sport coat that can cross your eyes permanently. He’s condemning everything from women’s liberation to the Catholic Church. He thinks we ought to nuke the Russians to show them what the Lord thinks about godless, atheistic communism. And he’s yelling at you personally like he’s caught you stealing his car, having sex with his wife, and selling dope and dirty magazines to his little girl. Somehow I can’t see that as the way to bring the word of God to our San Francisco yuppie, can you?”

  “It’s not my way,” Evan said quietly.

  “I know,” Marvin Michelson said. “You talk to people.”

  Evan Kyle Dean blinked. Somehow he’d slipped away—again. Talk to people! That’s why he was standing in the pulpit of True Witness Church. He said, “I want to talk to you about God.” He waited a moment. “Seems only right…” Then he stopped altogether. There was a block of ice pressing down on his Adam’s apple as he realized he was repeating himself.

  He tried to recover. “Quite an echo in here, isn’t there, brothers and sisters?” There were a few smiles on the faces of his brothers and sisters all the children of God. “We are, you know,” he said, “all children of God.”

  What was happening to him? It seemed he couldn’t think, couldn’t talk. He was sick. The healer was ill; physician, heal thyself. These days, he had no appetite, had to force himself to eat; everything seemed to have a burnt plastic aftertaste. He couldn’t sleep.

  And he could not heal—not anymore.

  He was shaking now. Could they see it, his brothers and sisters, or was the tremor only within him, a trembling not of the body but the soul? He had to get a grip on himself.

  “God is our Father,” he said, “and He’s a loving Father. That’s what he tells us throughout the Bible.” Though it was there at the edge of his mind, the next thought eluded him. A moment’s anxiety, and then he was sure he had it. “God is a God of love, you see. That’s what He has told us, you see. And He is a God who cannot and will not lie. God loves the truth, you see…” His voice trailed off.

  And what of those who lie in His name?

  Did he say that aloud or to himself? Or did he say it at all? Was the Lord speaking to him?

  Within his mind, Evan said to God: Lord, I need you.

  “I…I’m sorry,” he told the congregation. “I keep on…What I think is that my tongue’s getting in the way of my eyetooth and I can’t see what I’m saying, so…”

  Lord, he prayed, be with me now. Let Your love fill my heart, let Your wisdom clear my mind, let Your words be in my mouth.

  He glanced down at his notes on the lectern. There’d been a time when he never outlined sermons, when he knew what to say simply and eloquently. But you could hardly work that way on television. Taping Witness to Wonder, he employed a teleprompter, sometimes giving him words he’d written, sometimes the words of others—and sometimes he’d wondered if they were the words of God.

  Today’s text was from Malachi: “Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us?” The handwriting was slanted and jerky; it didn’t look familiar. He didn’t remember writing it.

  When Evan spoke, the words were a surprise to him. He was not citing Malachi but Micah, chapter six, verse eight. “What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” The next words he uttered were from Proverbs. “If sinners entice thee, consent thou not. Everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination unto the Lord. Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right. A righteous man hateth lying…”

  Confused and frightened as he was, Evan Kyle Dean could not doubt the Lord had spoken, but not to the brothers and sisters gathered here in True Witness.

  To Evan Kyle Dean.

  Everything was hazy, the faces of his brothers and his sisters floating and anonymous before his eyes. He brought Carol Grace into focus. She sat in the first pew, and he saw the concern and love on her face.

  “Friends,” he said, “brothers and sisters…”

  It would be all right. He would go home with his wife, and it would be all right. “I’m tired. I am very, very tired. I…I need to rest.”

  But before he could go home, he had to conclude the sermon. He knew what to say. He knew what he believed and would never doubt.

  “Brothers and sisters, God is love.”

  The following Sunday, in Grove Corner, Illinois, with her daughter, Vicki Barringer went to church for the first time in years.

  On the same Sunday, for the first time in years, Vicki Barringer’s brother-in-law, Evan Kyle Dean, did not preach to the congregation of True Witness Church in Mt. Franklin, Alabama, nor to anyone in any church. He lay in bed all day long, wishing he were dead and thinking that perhaps he, or his soul already was.

  — | — | —

  Twelve

  Missy thought the choir sounded beautiful. It was fun to sing along when you were supposed to, trying to follow the melody and keep up with the words in the book when you had never seen them before. Mom sang real nice, too. Mom seemed to know all the words to the hymns.

  The church was beautiful, too. Missy had somehow expected it to be dark and smelly, but it was all golden with polished wood, and the sun came in, lightly touching everything with a soft glow. The minister, whose name was Pastor Norton, was short and round and bald and cute, kind of like the Pillsbury Doughboy. What was cool about him was how he told silly jokes about the senior citizen group’s trip to the dinner theater, the men’s club’s next golf outing, and the women’s charity auction. Pastor Norton made everyone laugh. Missy hadn’t been too sure about the rules about laughing in the house of the Lord, but it had to be okay, with even the minister doing it.

  “The house of the Lord.” That’s what Mom had called it when they were getting ready this morning. Drinking a cup of coffee, Dad said, “Not only His house, but He doesn’t pay a thin dime in taxes.” Mom gave Dad a real angry look.

  Missy was certain you had to be on your best behavior in church—no squirming or scratching, no whispering with her friend Dorothy.

  Missy had asked, “Does the Lord punish you if you’re bad in His house?”

  Mom didn’t say anything for a second but looked like she was thinking hard. Dad said, “You’d better believe it, kiddo. He’ll smite you with a plague of locusts.” Mom gave him the look again, and he said something that sounded like “Superstitious bullshit,” but he said it with his mouth pretty much in the coffee cup so she couldn’t be sure that was what he really said.

  Mom told her, “The Lord loves everyone, Missy, and
He’s glad to welcome them to His house. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to act, no matter where you are. You know that.”

  “Uh-huh,” Missy said seriously. “You mean good manners. I’ve got ’em.”

  “I know you do, Missy. And I know you’re going to be a real lady in church and make me proud of you.”

  Missy did feel like a real lady. She felt pretty and grown-up in a new white and gold dress and shiny new shoes, and she even had a purse. Usually her favorite outfit was jeans and her Rainbow Brite top, but today was special.

  This was what church was meant to be, Vicki thought, what religion was all about. It was a serene time-out from commonplace day to day living, with its minor frustrations and little victories. Sitting in a pew in the middle of the church, her daughter beside her, her friend Laura Morgan and her child, Dorothy, to her right, being here now in the house of the Lord with her neighbors was good.

  She couldn’t help compare this dignified and restrained service to the heavily emotional and uninhibited Holiness Union Church services of her childhood. Maybe that was right for some people, maybe it had even been right for her then, but this was right for her now.

  And, she decided, it would be right for her from now on—and for her little girl. She glanced at Missy, who’d been as good as gold and was still shining! She regretted that Melissa had never been baptized.

  Vicki’s thoughts were interrupted when Reverend Norton began his sermon. “This past week, my wife and I took a little trip. We shipped the kids off to their grandparents and went to visit another couple we hadn’t seen in years, friends from our college days.” Reverend Norton smiled. “You know the definition of college, I’m sure. That’s where you learn you already know everything and nobody else knows anything.”