The Tent Read online

  "There," he said, when it was done. "Now we have to spread the word."

  They finished in an hour, covering the town with the small posters they had made on a copier at the library for ten cents a copy. There seemed to be one on every pole, fence, and wall Steven could see.

  "There." His father rubbed his hands together. "Now we wait."

  The afternoon dragged slowly by. Steven, who thought he had never been so mortally embarrassed, had gone into a kind of shock. He sat on the shady side of the tent—the Texas sun was almost flash hot—and tried not to think, but it was impossible. All along he had operated on the premise that it would never happen; something or somebody would intervene and stop it before it actually came to pass.

  But the tent was up, the posters were in place, and as slowly as the time passed, it did pass.

  And for the first time in his life Steven prayed.

  "Please, God, don't let anybody come to this tonight."

  Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction.

  IT WAS A SCENE, Steven thought, that looked like it was shot on a cheap home video for a very bad movie.

  The tent, even with the ends opened, was viciously, unbelievably hot. His father had put on the dark sports jacket and slacks—both originally purchased at Goodwill for two dollars—and had used a piece of white cardboard to make a minister's collar. But the coat was a thick one, made for winter, and Steven estimated the temperature in the tent to be at least 120 degrees. He could hardly breathe, and his father was completely soaked in perspiration, standing at the front of the tent in the gloomy light coming from the evening sun (there was no power outlet for the string of lights) with his hands clasped piously in front, waiting for wor-shipers to start coming.

  They had put 7:00 P.M. as the time to start, and as the deadline came closer, Steven began to hope his prayer had been answered. Even the two cowboys who had been there this afternoon failed to come.

  But at precisely seven there was a horrendous clatter and two ancient pickups arrived filled with people—or so it seemed. There were six adults. Two men somewhere close to forty, both wearing bib overalls and clean denim work shirts, both sunburned beet red in the face with a line on their foreheads where their caps stopped the sun. They could have been brothers. With them were four women, two of them wives and two who appeared to be grandmothers. The women were also sunburned, wearing clean but tired print dresses, and the backs of both trucks were filled with what seemed to be a herd of children. They were all dressed in tattered but clean clothes, all seemed to be scrubbed with rough brushes, and they never stopped moving. There were either eight of them or ten of them or—Steven closed one eye—maybe twelve.

  They all filed into the tent and sat on the rough plank benches.

  "Welcome," Steven's father said softly, "to the house of God."

  "What did he say?" one of the grandmothers asked.

  The man on her right leaned in close to her ear and bellowed, "HE SAID WELCOME TO THE HOUSE OF THE LORD!"

  "Oh. Good."

  The men turned to Steven's father. "You want to get loud on the good parts—ever since Granny was next to the water heater when it blew. Especially when the crowd comes."

  "I will."

  But as the moments passed and turned into a quarter of an hour—crawling moments while the small group waited on the benches—it became painfully apparent that there would not be a "crowd." Nobody else came. Worse, as time seemed to stop, the pack of kids became restless and started wrestling and tumbling—they looked like a rolling ball of arms and legs to Steven—until the same man turned and thumped three or four of them.

  "You don't start preaching soon," he said, turning to the front, "and I'm going to have to get the rope and tie them to the truck."

  Corey nodded but still hesitated, and Steven realized it was because he was nervous. Corey took a breath, held it, let it out, and spread his arms woodenly to the side.

  "Friends...," he croaked, his voice breaking. "We are gathered here in His name—"

  "Louder!" The old woman bellowed.

  "FRIENDS!" Steven's father began again. "WE ARE GATHERED HERE..."

  And so it went. He had written what he called a sermon, which he had on the plywood lectern, and had rehearsed in the trailer and while driving the truck so many times Steven almost knew it by heart. Corey followed the sermon, hollering each word at the top of his lungs, each word hitting Steven so loudly he winced.

  "...AND WE SHOULD NOT ASK FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, IT TOLLS FOR THEE!" Corey finished, his voice now a rasp. He had been proud of the last line, which he had "borrowed" from a Hemingway novel, and he waited as though expecting applause.

  None came and there was an embarrassed minute while everybody sat silent, seemingly waiting for something. Another minute and then Corey clapped his hands together.

  "I almost forgot—the offering." He motioned to Steven to pass the basket.

  Now Steven hesitated. The "basket" was a huge wicker affair that they had bought for a quarter at Goodwill. It was the kind of basket used for displaying fruit in grocery stores. It could hold melons, Steven thought, as he passed it to the people on the bench. He was so embarrassed, he failed to watch for money but turned away and went back to the side of the tent.

  Because the basket was so large, they had to handle it with both hands, and the man who held it last set it on the bench in front of him, and then they all settled back again, waiting.

  Steven knew it was finished and he saw his father shoot him a perplexed look. Then he looked back to the small group, back at Steven.

  "We like to end with a good song," the man directly in front of Corey said. "Sort of like dee-zert."

  "Song?"

  "A hymn," the man said, nodding. "Sort of to fortify us to go back out amongst the sinners."

  "Oh." Corey looked at Steven again.

  Steven shrugged, shook his head. He didn't know any hymns.

  Then Corey smiled and nodded at the man. "Why don't you lead us in a hymn?"

  "ROCK OF AGES!" the old woman screamed suddenly, so loud Steven and Corey jumped.

  "All right," Corey started. "That sounds good."

  "CLEFT FOR ME!" she wailed.

  "I said it's all right..."

  "LET ME HIDE MYSELF IN THEE!"

  And Steven realized then that she was singing the hymn. He didn't know the words, and neither did Corey, but it didn't matter. She took a deep breath, gathered her family around her with a stern look, and they all finished the hymn, not singing so much as screaming, almost but not quite in tune. And when it was done, they all stood at once and filed out.

  "Well..." Steven sat on the bench in front of the pulpit. "Now will you believe we can't do it?"

  His father collapsed and sat on the edge of the plywood platform that held the pulpit. He looked absolutely whipped—the dark coat drenched with sweat, his shoulders bowed and almost caved in—and he smiled weakly.

  "It's just that you don't really know how to do this," Steven added. "I never thought you would get this far. I thought you would give it up by now...." He trailed off because his father had noticed the huge collection basket on the bench. He leaned forward and pulled the basket to his lap, looked inside, and his face broke into a smile.

  "It's nothing to be ashamed of," Steven started again. "You just weren't meant to be a preacher."

  "Look at this." Corey reached into the basket and held up a handful of paper money. Mostly ones, but Steven could see some fives and the corner of a ten-dollar bill peeking out.

  His father dropped the basket and rifled through the money.

  "Look at it!" He fanned the bills. "Ten, fifteen, eighteen, another ten—there's twenty-eight dollars here!"

  "There is?" Steven stood, came forward. "Twenty-eight? They didn't look like they had two quarters to rub together."

  "You know how many burgers I have to fry in part-time jobs to clear twenty-eight dollars?"

  "Well..."

  "Or h
ow many feet of cruddy floors I've got to mop?

  "No. But still, you didn't do very well at it, you know."

  "Well? Boy, we did great at it. Praise God."

  "Praise God?"

  "From whom all blessings flow. Say, I like that. I heard it somewhere, but I think I'll use it in my next sermon. Yeah. Not right up front of course. Just bring it in toward the end, right before we take the collection—no, that's offering. I saw one of those television ministers and he always called it an offering."

  "You're going to do this again?" Steven asked.

  "Boy—we're just starting. We're going to go all the way to the top."

  "Oh," Steven said. "Oh, good."

  And if someone had told him then that he would come to enjoy it, would come to love it, Steven would have laughed in his face.

  Take heed and beware of covetousness (greed).

  THEY WENT across Texas, angling north, moving from small town to small town, but at first it did not seem to Steven to be getting any easier. Indeed, it seemed to be worse all the time.

  The weather grew hotter, the humidity more steamy with each evening, and the air somehow more dusty. On the second stop—only thirty miles from the first town—they seemed to have gone to a different country. Steven thought it had been flat before but now the country became truly flat, impossibly so, and with the new flatness, the heat seemed to double in intensity.

  They arrived early in the morning, having slept in the back of the truck, and set the tent up while it was still cool.

  "I'll finish around here," Corey said, rubbing his hands together, "and you put up the posters."

  Steven set off with the photocopies and tape. He had done four walls and three poles when a woman stopped him. She was perhaps fifty, although she looked ancient to Steven, and she wore a straight up-and-down dress like a suit of armor.

  "What faith are you?" she demanded in a voice that was so brittle it seemed to crack.

  "Pardon?"

  "Of which faith be you?"

  "Well, Christian, I guess, if it's all right that is."

  "I know that. But are you of the rock in the mount or the fish?"

  "I don't know. You'd have to ask my dad."

  "Of the fish?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about." And neither, he thought, will Dad. Then a stroke of what he thought to be genius hit him. "Why don't you come to the sermon tonight and find out?"

  "Oh, we will, boy," she said, walking away. "We will."

  We, Steven thought, watching her walk. Who is we?

  By the time he finished putting up posters and returned to the tent, his father had set up the pulpit and benches and hidden the truck in back of some trees at the edge of the park they were using for the meeting.

  Corey sat on a large rock on the shady side of the tent, writing in a notebook. Steven handed him a Coke he'd brought back from a small market and squatted next to him in the shade. "What are you doing?"

  Corey took a long pull at the Coke, swallowed, and sighed. "We learned from the first one, right?"

  Steven shrugged. "I'm not sure what, but yes, I guess we learned."

  "We learned we have to have a sermon written down—that's one thing we learned."

  "We also have to sing a hymn," Steven added. "And we have to sing it loud."

  "I don't know a hymn, but while you were sticking up the posters I got a little tape recorder and a tape of a woman singing 'Amazing Grace.' You just play it at the right places," Corey said. "We'll memorize the words later so we can sing along." He paused, then sighed. "You know, if anybody comes..."

  Steven suddenly remembered the woman who had stopped him but decided not to tell his father. There had been something about her voice, a hardness, and he wasn't sure he wanted Corey to worry.

  "I'm half-wrecked," Corey said, putting the pencil down. "Why don't you watch things while I catch a quick nap in the truck."

  He left and Steven sat quietly for a time, thinking of all the things he would rather be doing. The truth was there was nothing really to keep an eye on, and his attention quickly slid away. He flipped some rocks, waved at four people all crammed in the front seat of a pickup—pickups were everywhere, and very few cars—and was fast approaching a flat-line state in his thinking when his eyes closed and he fell asleep. When he opened them Corey was standing over him. It was dark, or nearly so—he must have been more tired than he thought—and Corey had found a power source on a pole at the edge of the park for the lights. "Come on, they're starting to arrive."

  Steven stood and moved to the round tent opening.

  They sat in a row on the bench, the new ones. Steven peered around the edge of the canvas at them. There were four—two men, two women, one the woman he had seen during the day—and they looked boiled, bleached, their eyes alert and somehow mean-looking.

  Look out, Dad, he thought, they're not taking prisoners.

  More cars trickled in, and finally there were twenty people who came in and sat on the benches. When Steven went to get his father from the truck, where he was putting his coat on, Corey smiled.

  "How many?"

  "Twenty."

  "Twenty? Man, that's good. We stand to make some change tonight."

  "Dad..." Steven thought about the four sitting on the front bench.

  Corey had started for the tent and stopped. "What?"

  And really there was nothing to tell—four people were sitting in the front row. What was that? "Nothing—good luck."

  "Thanks." And he disappeared into the tent. Steven waited until Corey was at the pulpit, and turned the small tape player on. Scratchy notes from "Amazing Grace" fought to overcome the coughing and whispering sounds, and just as the music was to end, Steven turned the volume down to nothing in a slow fade. His father waited half a beat and turned to face the congregation.

  "He lives," he said quietly.

  "Amen."

  "He lives for all sinners "

  "Amen."

  "Hallelujah!"

  Steven turned away from the tent, or started to. He'd heard it all before when his father had rehearsed it. But halfway to the truck, a new voice stopped him.

  "Be you of the true faith?" The voice was loud, challenging.

  Corey stopped in the middle of a well-rehearsed sentence. "There are many faiths, brother," he said, his voice soft.

  Here it comes, Steven thought, moving back toward the tent. They'll get him now. He peeked around the end just in time to see one of the four in front raise a finger and point directly at Corey.

  "Yes—but are you of the true faith?" And now the finger waved angrily. "Or do you blaspheme? Do you consort with low dwellers? Do you believe in God, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, or do you live with perverts and faggots and those consigned to burn for eternity?"

  Steven could not believe the voice. It oozed, dripped hate, and he actually moved backward a step.

  His father was taken aback as well and for a moment was quiet, could not seem to speak.

  "I asked, do you believe?" The man's voice rose, became angrier, on the edge of vicious.

  "I ..."

  "You do not believe!"

  "We..."

  "You do not believe!"

  Again Corey hesitated, his mouth open, and Steven felt the fear in him, the discomfort, and started to move to him, to help him, to lead him from the tent and save him.

  But a strange thing happened. Corey moved, actually took a step back from the pulpit, seemed to retreat from the hate, and then changed, all in a second. His shoulders stiffened, his back straightened, and he raised his hands over his head.

  "No!" Corey's voice was loud, filled the tent, and seemed to make the canvas flap at the sides. It was so sudden, it stopped the heckler. "I do not believe in hate, I do not believe in hate—God is a God of love. He loves all, all who come to Him. His love is in me, in you, in this holy tent." He took a breath, held it half a beat, and then, more softly, said, "I believe in love, the God of love who loves all things, all peopl
e, loves all...."

  And it worked. Steven stared at his father as he slid back into his rehearsed sermon. He was the same and yet somehow completely different. The tent was quiet, the people listening carefully to everything he said, and Steven watched, waiting for his cue to start the music for the offering hymn, and his father stayed in control the whole time.

  Steven began the hymn and passed the basket and was surprised to see all the people put bills in, even the one who had attacked Corey. As he played the final hymn, he glanced in the basket and saw several twenties and tens.

  The people filed out, shaking hands with Corey at the tent opening, and Steven gathered the basket and counted the money. One hundred and fifty dollars and some change. He had moved out of the tent, and Corey came out. He was smiling strangely.

  "Did you see that?"

  "Dad—we made a lot of money. A hundred and fifty—"

  "No—did you see that? My God, I owned them. They were in the palm of my hand. I think I could have taken them into a fire."

  "But Dad—we made more—"

  "Did you see it?" Corey wasn't listening. "Did you? Did you see it?"

  And he walked away, smiling oddly, shaking his head slowly from side to side.

  Watch and pray that you fall not into temptation.

  IT SEEMED THEN that all things changed and nothing changed. What happened was so slow and subtle that Steven didn't often know it was happening until after it happened.

  It came in stages, almost like scenes from a play or movie that Steven could only see after they happened and only understand after that, like when they went to Calypso.

  Calypso, Texas, was small and dusty and flat, like much of Texas. They came into town well after dark and delayed setting up the tent until the next morning. Instead of sleeping in the truck, they took a room at a motel and had no sooner checked in then the phone rang.