A Touch of Infinity Read Online Free PDF Page A

City.”
    â€œYou’re looking well, Mr. Blunt, if I may say so,” the chauffeur remarked.
    â€œWhat do you know about Joe Jerico?” Blunt asked him.
    â€œHe’s a fine man.”
    â€œWhat makes you say so?”
    â€œTake my old grandaddy. He was the dirtiest, sinfulest old lecher that ever tried to rape a nice little black girl. Truth is, we couldn’t have a woman near him. That is, when he wasn’t drunk. When he was drunk, he was just a mean and dangerous old devil and he’d just as soon break a bottle of corn over your head as say hello.”
    â€œWhat the hell has that got to do with Joe Jerico?”
    â€œHe went to one gathering—just one—and he saw the light.”
    â€œHow is he now?”
    â€œSaintly. Just so damn saintly you want to crack him across the head with a piece of cordwood.”
    â€œOne meeting?”
    â€œYes, sir, Mr. Blunt. One meeting and he got the word.”
    It was dark when they reached Repentance City, but batteries of giant floods turned the vast parking area into daylight. Thousands of cars were already there, like a sea of beetles around the vast, looming white tent. Blunt respected size and organization. “How many does the tent hold?” he asked his chauffeur.
    â€œTen thousand.”
    â€œHe fills it?”
    â€œEvery night. You wouldn’t believe it, Mr. Blunt, but they drive two, three hundred miles to be here. He has a loudspeaker setup, and sometimes he has an overflow of two, three thousand can’t get into the tent. So they sit in their cars, just like a drive-in movie.”
    â€œAdmission?”
    â€œJust two bits. He won’t turn away the poor, but then he takes up a collection.”
    They parked, and Blunt then told the chauffeur to wait, while he made his way on foot to the tent. There must have been two or three hundred ushers, men and women, organizing the crowd and handing out leaflets and song sheets, the men in white suits, the women in white dresses. It was an enormous, businesslike, and well-conducted operation, and some quick arithmetic told Blunt that the nightly take, out of admission and nominal contributions, should approach a minimum of five thousand dollars. By his standards it was not tremendous, but it marked Joe Jerico as very much a man of practical affairs, however metaphysical his profession might be.
    Blunt paid his quarter, entered, and found himself a seat on a bench toward the rear, sandwiched between a very fat middle-aged old woman and a very lean old man. Already the tent was almost filled to capacity, with only a rare space to be seen here and there; just a few minutes after he arrived, the meeting started with a choir of fifty voices singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” A second and a third hymn followed, and then the house lights went down and a battery of spots fixed on stage center. The backdrop was a black cyclorama, the curtain of which parted for Joe Jerico to step into the spotlights, not a tall man, not a short man, straight, wide-shouldered, with a big head, a great mane of graying hair, and pale gray eyes like bits of glowing ice.
    No introduction; he plunged right in with a voice that had the timbre of an organ: “My text is St. John, eight, twelve. ‘Then spake Jesus unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.’ Do you believe? So help me God, I hope not. This is no place for believers. This is for the unbelievers, for the lost, for the misbegotten, for the devil-pursued, for the lost, I say, for you come in here and you come home and you are found! Open your hearts to me …”
    Frank Blunt listened, intent and thoughtful, less touched by emotion than by admiration for the man’s masterly command of the crowd. He played them as one plays a great instrument, as if indeed he was the extension of some mighty force that operated