Charles found that odd, for the younger man’s face showed more signs of intelligence than his uncle’s placid expression and sluggish eyes.
Ray Laurie introduced himself as Babe’s brother.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Charles.
Ray Laurie’s eyes blanked for the time it took to wonder what loss that might be. When at last he understood, he smiled and nodded. “If you’ll just follow me?”
Charles was escorted to a front-row seat cordoned off with a velvet rope and a reserved sign. His view of the stage would have a slightly sidelong angle, and Ray Laurie hoped Charles didn’t mind.
“Not at all.” Charles had to shout to be heard above the crowd. There must be a thousand people already seated, and perhaps twice that many outside, awaiting admission. “So will Malcolm be carrying on with his brother’s ministry?”
“Well, Mal was the preacher right along, Mr. Butler. Now Babe was a real big attraction, what with his psychic predictions and healing power – I wouldn’t take that away from him. But Malcolm always did the real preaching. He’s a thing to behold.”
Charles was staring up at the stage when a mass of red drape was pulled away from the large board at the rear.
“Now that’s new,” said Ray Laurie, pointing up to the enormous photograph of the late Babe Laurie. The image was bigger than a highway billboard. “You would not believe what it cost to have that made up on a rush order. But Mal wanted to do up the memorial service with style. I think Babe would’ve liked it a lot.”
Charles had already guessed that this giant portrait was not the standard fixture. From his vantage point to the side, he could see a portion of the older prop. All that was visible was the large bloodied hand of Christ nailed to the arm of a giant crucifix, and now displaced by the full-color blowup of Babe’s face. New icons for old.
The vacant seats were filling quickly as an army of people poured through the large opening in the canvas and filed into the rows of folding chairs.
Vendors with bright orange vests moved among the faithful, loudly hawking souvenirs and charms, shouting to be heard above the restless babble. For fifty dollars, one could buy a lock of Babe Laurie’s hair. The bargain price of five dollars would buy a severed bird’s foot on a key chain to protect a body from his enemies. For that same price, small feathered bags of herbs would cure ills from arthritis to cancer. For a few dollars more, one could have bits of quartz shaped like pyramids, blessed by Babe Laurie himself, and guaranteed to hasten miracles of all kinds. A beer was four dollars, a hot dog was three. And here, brothers and sisters, was the best bargain in the offering, a bit of heaven itself – a pink cloud of cotton candy, swirling on a paper cone, could be had for two – count ‘em – only two dollars.
And now, with a little prompting from the barking men in the orange vests, the crowd began to chant a mantra.
“Babe, Babe, Babe!”
A gospel choir, dressed in deep purple robes and a mix of dark and light skin, assembled beneath the giant portrait and, a cappella, they sang to the chanting crowd, which took the part of a deafening, rhythmic chorus.
“Babe, Babe!”
“Oh, when the sa-a-a-a-ints – ”
“Babe, Babe!”
“ – come marching i-i-i-n – ”
“Babe! Babe!”
“ – Oh, when the saints come ma-a-a-rching in – ”
“Babe, Babe, Babe!”
The music of a Dixieland band preceded the musicians, who now marched onto the stage and took their place beside the choir, displacing the chants with rousing trumpets, one clarinet and a trombone. The crowd’s chanting dissolved into cheers and applause. The rhythm of the hand-clapping became a single clap of thunder. The brass sparkled, and the horns hit their highest notes.
The music ended before the song was done, heightening anticipation as the houselights dimmed. One spotlight illuminated a small circle on the billboard at the rear of the stage. The crowd screamed and clapped. The circle of light grew in size and intensity until it was a burning sun.
Too bright. Charles looked away for a moment, and then he turned back with the ‘oh’s and ’ah’s of the crowd to behold a petty miracle made of dry ice and boiling water, as a slow crawl of ground fog rolled across the stage.
And now Malcolm Laurie appeared at the center of the bright circle. His costume had more spangles than a matador’s suit of lights. The low boil of stage fog obscured his legs below the knees as he moved forward in the smooth glide of an artful dancer, and one could believe his feet were not touching the floor. The spotlight dimmed, but Malcolm glittered and gleamed. Smiling a row of dazzling white teeth, he raised his hand for silence. The screams died out in a sigh breathed round the tent.
The litany began, amplified by a wireless microphone and accompanied by the soft croon of the choir. “Brothers and sisters, are you tired of being poor? Say, amen!”
“Amen!” the crowd yelled.
“Are you tired of your misery? Say amen!”
“Amen!”
“I know what you’re wondering, brothers and sisters. Why? you ask, oh why has Babe Laurie died and forsaken you?”
The light blazed up in high brilliance. When it blacked out, Malcolm was gone.
Now the spotlight reappeared closer to the front of the stage, and Malcolm came walking out of the light. “Babe is not gone. He is here! My brother is with me. He is with all of us tonight.”
His hands reached out to the crowd, his fingers trembling, his voice soft as a lover’s. “Can you feel it? Can you feel his love? Open your hearts wide and hear me. I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my love.” He strutted from one end of the stage to the other, gazing over the flock, leaving the impression that he had made a profound connection with every pair of eyes.
“My beloved put his hand by the hole of the door.” Malcolm’s hand went to his heart as he sank down on one knee. “And I rose up to open to my beloved.” Malcolm stood up slowly. “My hands and my fingers dripped with sweet-smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock.” His voice was softer, lower, saying, “I opened to my beloved.” He threw out his hands as though to embrace them all. “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me: he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.”
Charles recognized the more erotic lines from The Song of Solomon, more or less intact, with verses out of order. Malcolm stole from the best as well as the least. Charles turned to an elderly woman seated in the row behind him. Her eyes were trained on the evangelist as though he were her lover. And of course, he was.
Malcolm glistened with sweat and sparkled with light. His honeyed voice rolled over the crowd. The preacher was giving the audience holy sanctioned sex. He was reaching out to all of them, men and women alike, stroking them with his eyes, his voice, touching all the soft places and exciting them to a roar of “Amen!” He was the image of a rock star, raw sensuality in the service of the Lord.
“Brothers and sisters!” Malcolm cried out. “I can feel Babe inside of me, filling my body with the fluid of love, the power of God Almighty. I got the power!” One closed fist shot out, angling toward heaven.
“Amen!” screamed the crowd with renewed fervor.