If Haze had believed in praying, he would have prayed for a disciple, but as it was all he could do was worry about it a lot. Then two nights after the boy, the disciple appeared.
That night he preached outside of four different picture shows and every time he looked up, he saw the same big face smiling at him. The man was plumpish, and he had curly blond hair that was cut with showy sideburns. He wore a black suit with a silver stripe in it and a wide-brimmed white hat pushed onto the back of his head, and he had on tight-fitting black pointed shoes and no socks. He looked like an ex-preacher turned cowboy, or an ex-cowboy turned mortician. He was not handsome but under his smile, there was an honest look that fitted into his face like a set of false teeth.
Every time Haze looked at him, the man winked.
At the last picture show he preached in front of, there were three people listening to him besides the man. “Do you people care anything about the truth?” he asked. “The only way to the truth is through blasphemy, but do you care? Are you going to pay any attention to what I’ve been saying or are you just going to walk off like everybody else?”
There were two men and a woman with a cat-faced baby sprawled over her shoulder. She had been looking at Haze as if he were in a booth at the fair. “Well, come on,” she said, “he’s finished. We got to be going.” She turned away and the two men fell in behind her.
“Go ahead and go,” Haze said, “but remember that the truth don’t lurk around every street corner.”
The man who had been following reached up quickly and pulled Haze’s pantsleg and gave him a wink. “Come on back heah, you folks,” he said. “I want to tell you all about me”
The woman turned around again and he smiled at her as if he had been struck all along with her good looks. She had a square red face and her hair was freshly set. “I wisht I had my gittarr here,” the man said, ” ‘cause I just somehow can say sweet things to music bet tern plain. And when you talk about Jesus you need a little music, don’t you, friends?” He looked at the two men as if he were appealing to the good judgment that was impressed on their faces. They had on brown felt hats and black town suits, and they looked like older and younger brother. “Listen, friends,” the disciple said confidentially, “two months ago before I met the Prophet here, you wouldn’t know me for the same man. I didn’t have a friend in the world. Do you know what it’s like not to have a friend in the world?”
“It ain’t no worsen havinum that would put a knife in your back when you wasn’t looking,” the older man said, barely parting his lips.
“Friend, you said a mouthful when you said that,” the man said. “If we had time, I would have you repeat that just so ever’body could hear it like I did.” The picture show was over and more people were coming up. “Friends,” the man said, “I know you’re all interested in the Prophet here,” pointing to Haze on the nose of the car, “and if you’ll just give me time I’m going to tell you what him and his idears’ve done for me. Don’t crowd because I’m willing to stay here all night and tell you if it takes that long.”
Haze stood where he was, motionless, with his head slightly forward, as if he weren’t sure what he was hearing.
“Friends,” the man said, “lemme innerduce myself. My name is Onnie Jay Holy and I’m telling it to you so you can check up and see I don’t tell you any lie. I’m a preacher and I don’t mind who knows it but I wouldn’t have you believe nothing you can’t feel in your own hearts. You people coming up on the edge push right on up in here where you can hear good,” he said. “I’m not selling a thing, I’m giving something away!” A considerable number of people had stopped.
“Friends,” he said, “two months ago you wouldn’t know me for the same man. I didn’t have a friend in the world. Do you know what it’s like not to have a friend in the world?”
A loud voice said, “It ain’t no worsen havinum that would put…”
“Why, friends,” Onnie Jay Holy said, “not to have a friend in the world is just about the most miserable and lonesome thing that can happen to a man or woman! And that’s the way it was with me. I was ready to hang myself or to despair completely. Not even my own dear old mother loved me, and it wasn’t because I wasn’t sweet inside, it was because I never known how to make the natural sweetness inside me show. Every person that comes onto this earth,” he said, stretching out his arms, “is born sweet and full of love. A little child loves ever’body, friends, and its nature is sweetness—until something happens. Something happens, friends, I don’t need to tell people like you that can think for theirselves. As that little child gets bigger, its sweetness don’t show so much, cares and troubles come to perplext it, and all its sweetness is driven inside it. Then it gets miserable and lonesome and sick, friends. It says, ‘Where is all my sweetness gone? where are all the friends that loved me?’ and all the time, that little beat-up rose of its sweetness is inside, not a petal dropped, and on the outside is just a mean lonesomeness. It may want to take its own life or yours or mine, or to despair completely, friends.” He said it in a sad nasal voice but he was smiling all the time so that they could tell he had been through what he was talking about and come out on top. “That was the way it was with me, friends. I know what of I speak,” he said, and folded his hands in front of him. “But all the time that I was ready to hang myself or to despair completely, I was sweet inside, like ever’body else, and I only needed something to bring it out. I only needed a little help, friends.
“Then I met this Prophet here,” he said, pointing at Haze on the nose of the car. “That was two months ago, folks, that I heard how he was out to help me, how he was preaching the Church of Christ Without Christ, the church that was going to get a new jesus to help me bring my sweet nature into the open where ever’body could enjoy it. That was two months ago, friends, and now you wouldn’t know me for the same man. I love ever’one of you people and I want you to listen to him and me and join our church, the Holy Church of Christ Without Christ, the new church with the new jesus, and then you’ll all be helped like met”
Haze leaned forward. “This man is not true,” he said. “I never saw him before tonight. I wasn’t preaching this church two months ago and the name of it ain’t the Holy Church of Christ Without Christi”
The man ignored this and so did the people. There were ten or twelve gathered around. “Friends,” Onnie Jay Holy said, “I’m mighty glad you’re seeing me now instead of two months ago because then I couldn’t have testified to this new church and this Prophet here. If I had my gittarr with me I could say all this better but I’ll just have to do the best I can by myself.” He had a winning smile and it was evident that he didn’t think he was any better than anybody else even though he was.
“Now I just want to give you folks a few reasons why you can trust this church,” he said. “In the first place, friends, you can rely on it that it’s nothing foreign connected with it. You don’t have to believe nothing you don’t understand and approve of. If you don’t understand it, it ain’t true, and that’s all there is to it. No jokers in the deck, friends.”
Haze leaned forward. “Blasphemy is the way to the truth,” he said, “and there’s no other way whether you understand it or not!”
“Now, friends,” Onnie Jay said, “I want to tell you a second reason why you can absolutely trust this churches it’s based on the Bible. Yes sir! It’s based on your own personal interpitation of the Bible, friends. You can sit at home and interpit your own Bible however you feel in your heart it ought to be interpited. That’s right,” he said, “just the way Jesus would have done it. Gee, I wisht I had my gittarr here,” he complained.