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 some 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.”