The Tent Read online

  "Hello?" Steven answered.

  "I wish to speak to the minister. Is he there?"

  "Yes?" Corey answered.

  Then only short words.

  "Yes. I agree. Yes. Please do. Fine. We'll expect you." And he hung up the phone.

  "Some men are coming to talk to us," he said to Steven, "about how we can do better."

  "Do better? We've only been doing this two weeks, and we're already making better than a hundred dollars a day. How can we do better?"

  Corey smiled. "They told me about healing—using the Word to heal."

  "Heal?"

  Corey nodded. "They'll be here in a minute—they called from across the street."

  And they were. Two men arrived within five minutes and knocked on the door softly. Corey let them in the room. One was short, balding, about forty and walked with a slight limp. The other was thin but not tall and had the start of a beard. Both men smiled at Steven, and he nodded to them and turned back to watching television, although he used the remote to cut the sound down.

  "We like to help the gospelers," the bald man said. "We like to go assisting 'em to spread the Word."

  Corey nodded. "So you said on the phone. Something about healing, you said."

  The bald man nodded. "It's a true fact that you can do better if you throw in a healing—make twice as much."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Cripples, the blind, and the like. All you got to do is heal a couple of them, and those believers are going to throw money in the basket. It works every time."

  Corey nodded. "I've seen healing on television. You just lay hands on them and they get healed, right?"

  The bald man stood for a moment and didn't say anything.

  "Isn't that the way it works? Their faith does the rest?"

  "Well..." The bald man nodded. "You might say that. But they need a little help now and again, to get what you might call a clearer picture of their faith. They need some assistance. Me and Davis here like to think of ourselves as God's helpers. We sit in the congregation and when you call for the lame and halt and 'flicted I gets up and drags my leg—maybe you saw it when I came in here, the limp?—and come up with my hands all raised and crying, and you touch me and heal me and I walk away straight as a new pin."

  Corey nodded. "And that gets the ball rolling?"

  He shook his head. "One ain't enough, usually. There are them to waver in their faith, but two always does it. That's where Davis comes in. He has a good grating cough. Cough for 'em, Davis."

  Davis, who had been silent all this time, nodded and coughed deep from his lungs. Even Steven had to admit it sounded serious, although he seemed none the worse for wear when he was done.

  "That's a good cough," Corey said, nodding.

  Jamey nodded. "He's got him a good lung cavity there. He was born with it. You can't just cough normal—anybody can do that. You've got to sound good. Davis here, when he's rolling good, sounds like he's about to heave a lung up. Then you lay hands on him and he breathes deep and that'll do her."

  Steven was almost laughing out loud. It all sounded ridiculous and he expected Corey to throw them out any second, but when he looked at his father he was surprised to see interest.

  "And you say this will help me increase the take—the flock?"

  Jamey nodded. "We worked with a reverend name of Simmons down in the Corpus area, and he almost doubled his collections in a week. They come to see the miracles—they like them miracles more than anything."

  "But won't they know you? I mean, you live around here...."

  Jamey shook his head. "Naw, we're from over in East Texas. We thought we'd come over here and see what there was to offer for a gimp and a lunger, and we seen you down below day before yesterday and liked the way you worked, so we thought we'd offer our assistance in the making of miracles."

  "About that," Corey said. "Your assistance. How much ... assistance ... are we talking about here? How do you figure into the financial end of it?"

  Jamey nodded, smiling. "I told Davis you'd get right to business. Well, I tell you, we used to just rely on the compassion of the trade, so to speak. But we found some ministers was more compassionate than others, and a lot of them weren't compassionate at all. So now we have a rate—we take fifteen percent of the collection."

  "Fifteen? Isn't that a bit high?"

  Jamey shrugged. "Depends on how you look at it. If we double your collection then fifteen percent ain't so much, is it?"

  "A good point."

  "Let's do her this way," Jamey said. "You try us for three nights—one might not be enough—until the word gets out ahead that you found the power and you're doing some healing. If there ain't a good increase we part company and that's it. How does that sound?"

  Corey nodded. "It sounds worth trying."

  Corey and Jamey shook hands, Davis coughed, and the two men went to the door. Jamey stopped with his hand on the knob. "Are you open to some advice?"

  Corey nodded. "What is it?"

  "Your hair's too flat."

  "My hair?"

  "Yeah. You'll find them parishioners like a good head of hair on their reverends. You got to get it poofed up so it makes your head look big. It'd be good if it was silver or white, all combed up and back, but if you don't want to color it at least get it done to make it look bigger. You've got to have big hair to really get 'em into the faith."

  "I'll see what I can do."

  "Also you might want to buy some cheap shoes at a pawn shop and sand a hole in the bottom so they look worn. Then you want to sit down now and then and make sure they see the bottom of your shoes, so's they'll think you ain't doing all that well."

  "Really? Do people really do that?"

  Jamey nodded. "You've got to think to stay ahead, you've got to think all the time."

  Jamey turned the doorknob, Davis went out in front of him, and they were gone. Steven watched them go and thought, Now we've got a gimp and a lunger?

  Corey looked at the wall mirror over the small writing table next to the television. "You know, I think he's right. My hair is too flat. I believe I should have it done."

  A corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.

  COREY WAS A natural at "healing," or as Jamey put it, "You can sure lay down them miracles."

  That night there were thirty-four people—the best crowd they'd ever had—and none of them knew yet about the laying on of hands.

  Jamey and Davis arrived slightly early, already "in character," as Jamey put it. Davis was coughing softly into a handkerchief with red spots on it.

  "It's ketchup," Jamey said. "Holds the color better and lasts for hours." He was limping well, now and then dragging his right leg, and as a final touch had brought a pair of cheap wooden crutches. He spoke quietly for a few moments with Corey, who nodded, and then Jamey came to Steven, who was standing by the tent opening where the tape player was to play the opening hymn.

  "Mind when I throw the crutches down," Jamey told Steven. "I'll throw them away from the congregation, but sometimes they'll get to being light-fingered, those who come to see the miracles. I've had crutches and even neck braces stole from me. So as soon as I flop them down you come on, you know, like an attendant and take them away."

  "Like an attendant?"

  "Exactly. We can't go to buying a new pair of crutches every night can we? It would eat the profits up."

  "Profits..."

  Jamey nodded, then smiled. "Ever wonder why profits and prophets sound so much alike? Kind of like a message, ain't it? Like we're supposed to be making money."

  Steven moved back out the opening and out of sight, still smiling and half thinking it was all a joke. But then people started to arrive and they all looked clean and hopeful, some of them kids, scrubbed and fresh and ready to hear about God, and a tinge of something, not a pain but coming toward it, a small shot of something cold and not very pretty came to him: they were doing this all to people who seemed to really believe.

  But then it was ti
me for the hymn to start and he became busy, and when the moment came for the laying on of hands and healing, everything was new and exciting and he forgot the feeling.

  His father did the sermon and then they sang another hymn—Steven was getting good at keying in the music—but then, after the hymn, instead of passing the basket his father waved him away and stood at the pulpit again.

  "I have heard there are those who need the healing grace of God," he said.

  "Amen," several in the congregation murmured. Steven was certain Davis and Jamey were first.

  "Whoever you are, please come forward."

  There was a moment's silence, almost an awkwardness that seemed to come into the tent and then a rustling as first Jamey, struggling on his crutches, and then Davis, the handkerchief to his mouth, came forward. They had been sitting at the end of the bench in the clear, but it was still difficult for Jamey to work the crutches around people's legs as he came forward, and he played it to the hilt, apologizing to them, stumbling, once falling nearly into somebody's lap.

  Finally he stood before Corey, looking up at him, his eyes hopeful, and Steven could swear there was a tear coming down from each. "I want the power of God in me—I want Him to heal me."

  "Do you believe?"

  "I believe."

  Corey stepped forward and put his hand on Jamey's forehead. "Do you believe?"

  And he suddenly snapped Jamey's head back, jerked it forward again, and Jamey stood silent for a moment, his eyes closed and then, almost in a whisper: "I feel it."

  "Hallelujah," Corey said, also in a whisper.

  Jamey half turned and said louder, "I feel it!"

  "Hallelujah!" Corey made it louder, turned to the congregation, and raised his hands. "Hallelujah!"

  "I feel the power of the Lord in me," Jamey said, louder still. "I feel it in my bones, in my old bones. I feel it."

  "Amen," Corey said. Then, louder again, "Amen!"

  And any hesitation in the people of the congregation, who had been almost silent, was gone when Jamey threw aside the crutches—being careful, as he'd said, to aim them away from the people where Steven could get them—and stood straight. "I'm healed! I'm healed!"

  He turned and walked across the space in front of the pulpit without limping, and at the same time Davis started up with the most horrible hacking Steven had ever heard, worse even than his demonstration in the motel room. He stumbled forward while he was coughing, the reddened handkerchief showing, and Corey repeated the gestures, shaking Davis's head and yelling, " Heal!"

  Except by this time he had the crowd and they shouted, "Hallelujah!" and "Amen!" so loud Steven could almost see the canvas flapping, and when Davis stood and breathed deeply without coughing there was a continuous chorus of amens that fed on itself and grew until the tent was filled with sound.

  Steven couldn't believe it. It was all so phony since he knew what was going on, but they wanted to believe in it so much, so very much, that they took it all at face value.

  We are stealing from them, he thought. It struck him so hard that he actually took a step forward, was going to tell his father about the thought, but then something strange happened.

  A woman stood up suddenly. She was tall and thin and seemed gaunt but not old. She was in the middle of the second row of benches, and she stumbled over people as she came out.

  "I have a problem," she said, moving toward the pulpit. "I have no strength. I become weak in the afternoons. Please help me. Bring God to me to help me."

  For a second Corey was taken aback, but only a second. He put his hand on the woman's head.

  "God," he said. "Give her strength, give her strength all the time, give her your strength." He shook her head on the word your and seemed to push so hard the woman nearly fell over, would have fallen, except that Jamey had remained nearby and caught her and held her up.

  "I can feel it," she said. "I cam feel it! God is in me." Her back grew straighter and to Steven's complete amazement she seemed to fill in some way, almost to grow and become a healthy looking young woman.

  God, he thought, my God. And it wasn't swearing; it was a kind of prayer. I have seen it work, he thought. I have seen the miracle work.

  At that moment somebody at the side found and passed the collection basket and Steven remembered suddenly to start the final hymn. He moved to the tape player slowly, still in awe, and he saw that even his father looked stunned, kept looking at the woman as she went back to the pew, staring after her.

  I saw it too, Steven thought. She changed completely.

  Steven took the basket and Corey did the blessing and then waited for everybody to file out. Nobody moved until, finally, Jamey stood and went to the door of the tent and waved at them and walked ahead of them out into the parking area.

  At that they moved out and got in their cars—all in silence, even the children—and drove away. Jamey stayed outside for a moment and spoke to the woman who had come up from the congregation and shook her hand and closed her car door for her and watched her drive away. Then he came back into the tent, where Davis—as soon as the last car was gone—started counting the collection.

  "Right at three hundred dollars," he said, smiling at Jamey, who came to help count. "And some change."

  Corey was drenched in perspiration, his back and sides wet. "Did you see her?" he asked of no one in particular. "Did you see her?"

  "I did," Steven said. "It was incredible. She looked so sick and you touched her, and she just seemed to swell up with life."

  Jamey looked up from helping Davis with the collection. "The woman? That was Helen."

  "You know her?"

  "Of course. I asked her to come. She's a filler—one of the best there is. Puffs up like a balloon, don't she? She happened to be in the area and I gave her a call. Don't you worry none—I'll pay her out of my percentage. She won't cost you a dime."

  Corey held up his hand. "You mean she isn't real?"

  "Well, of course she's real. You just saw her, didn't you? She's one of the reasons your collection did so good. I called her last night—wait a minute. You thought you'd cured one, didn't you?"

  Corey didn't say anything, looking sheepish.

  Jamey laughed and slapped his leg. "Oh, that's rich. Davis, listen up—he thought he'd cured one. Come in here on his first run and healed one, that's what he thought. Oh, man, that's good."

  And for a second, a short second that Steven would remember later, remember a hundred times later, for three-quarters of a second he felt horrified, felt again like they had stolen something from the people in the congregation, stolen something precious, and from the look on his father's face Corey felt the same. His features fought with it; some last shred of ethics—of good—battled with all the other bad.

  But only a moment. Only for the time of a dying thought did it hold. Then Corey smiled; the smile widened and turned into a laugh, and Steven smiled and started laughing a laugh he did not feel at first but again, only for a second, then louder and happier until he was doubled over with it.

  "Praise God," Corey said, reaching into the collection basket and holding up a handful of money. "We are going to be rich!"

  "Praise Almighty God," Jamey said, nodding and laughing, "from whom all blessings flow."

  And Steven nodded and laughed and laughed until he could not remember the faces of the people who had sat looking up in such awe, wanting to believe, wanting to know God—laughed it all away.

  And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

  THEY EVOLVED a system, a set of plans to follow based on Jamey's experience.

  The success of the first "healing night of financial miracles," as Corey came to call it, made them revamp their procedure. They had been planning on staying for a few days or even a week in each town, but Jamey shook his head.

  "They come back and see me and Davis or Helen and it's over. You can't use the same crips and lungers over and over, and frankly there aren't that many good ones around. You think
me and Davis grow on trees? I learned how to twist that leg back when I was working car accidents, and I took a power of bumps and bruises before it started to work right. And Davis was years and a lot of whiskey and cigarettes getting that cough right. There's many of 'em don't want to make the commitment for excellence that we do."

  "I see." Corey nodded. "So we move around?"

  Jamey squatted down in the dirt by the tent and nodded. "Yes, but not in a line. It has to be a star pattern, go up like this a hundred or more miles, then back down like this, then over this way."

  He drew a star in the dirt with his finger. "Each point at least a hundred fifty miles from the last point so that there's no pattern. You don't want them to start following you around. That just flat ruins your chances of getting new converts to heal."

  "New converts?" Steven had been standing off to the side and he moved a step closer. "You mean people to really heal?"

  Jamey nodded. "They'll come. As the word spreads that your father has the touch, they'll come. You'll be up to your knickers in crutches and neck braces and slings."

  "But Dad doesn't really heal people. It's all a sham."

  Jamey looked at Corey and Davis, then back to Steven. "It's all in the head, ain't it? If they think they're being healed, then they're being healed, right?"

  "Well..."

  Corey cut in. "It's all psychological, Steven. I've read about it. It works."

  "Just so, just so." Jamey nodded. "And once the word is out you'll see—they'll come from far and wide to get your daddy's touch. You'll have to have a truck to haul the offerings."

  And he was right.

  By the fourth night after the first healing sermon, Steven was so perpetually tired and confused he wasn't sure where they were or where they were going next. They traveled like a circus. As soon as the sermon was over and the collection counted, they packed the tent into the truck and started driving to the next town. When the tent was set up— and they could do it in thirty minutes before long—Jamey and Davis and Steven went around town with the handbills, and Corey prepared for the night's work by pressing his suit in the back of the tent with an iron and small board they'd bought at a discount store.