The Bastard Hand Read Online Free PDF Page B

began to ache. I didn’t look at them, not wanting to see that golden glow.
    “Control,” he said. “Because, with a word, a single word, I controlled you.”
    An embarrassed, uncomfortable moment followed. Eyes shifted, feet shuffled. A few throats cleared.
    Holding his Bible, Reverend Childe stepped away from the podium and strolled almost casually out in front of it. He said, “Do you understand that, Brothers and Sisters? I controlled you. With a single, ugly little word, you turned away from God and gave yourselves to hate.” He shook his head with exaggerated sadness. “Ah, God have mercy on us, have mercy on our poor souls. I heard the Devil laughing.”
    Another startled murmur went through the congregation. From where I stood, all the parishioners were one being, moving and making noise collectively. One big organism under Childe’s sway. Already, the anger had faded, leaving faces slack and pliable.
    Childe started treading back and forth on the stage, his long lean form like a swinging pendulum hypnotizing every mind. “First of all, Brothers and Sisters,” he said gently, “I’m sorry as can be for shocking you like that. Sometimes, the way God speaks through me is a trifle on the . . . eccentric side. I hope you’ll forgive me for saying that ugly, filthy word. But I feel that the duty He’s given me is to shake things up some. To rattle the flock and wake ’em up. You see, good people . . . we can’t take nothing for granted. The freedoms we enjoy, the small dignities we possess, are ours only through the grace of God.”
    Then that miracle happened. Someone said, “Amen!”
    Another one followed. Then another.
    Over the next few minutes, Reverend Childe did the impossible. He made those people love him. Of course, later, I would see him pull it off time and time again, but this was the first time and all I could do was stand there stunned while he made the women swoon, the men cry with emotion, the children shout and sing. Something about the way he looked, the way he talked, the way he moved.
    Even I—who knew something about his true beliefs—wasn’t totally immune to his magnetism. I watched him, fascinated, while he spoke of Christian brotherhood, no matter the color of your skin, fighting Satan’s power with the love of God, being ever vigilant for evil to rear its head anywhere, anytime.
    As he spoke his pace began picking up, his voice grew steadily stronger, his strolling back and forth on the stage became faster and more frenzied, until he was screaming and ranting, waving his Bible in the air. “We are all God’s sheep!” he said. “All of us!”
    The congregation was bursting with love and righteous fervor. The old woman shouted, “Hallelujah!” and someone answered with “Praise Him! Praise Him!” I realized my jaw was hanging slack with amazement. All the anger, all that violence that threatened to explode only moments ago, had dissipated.
    Reverend Childe had brought old time religion to the Haley Baptist Church.
    After the sermon, everyone headed down to the basement for a dinner of roast beef and mashed potatoes with gravy and the best goddamn apple pie I’d ever tasted. I ate ravenously, despite the insistent pain of my broken tooth, and the dull ache in my fingers.
    Almost the entire congregation swarmed around Reverend Childe while he ate. A few people hung back—a handful of wiser men who still felt uneasy about him—but they were in the minority. All the women clamored, standing in line to shake his hand and tell him how much his sermon moved them. Childe would politely wipe his hands and say, “Thankee” through a mouthful of meat. You could smell desire in the air.
    After getting halfway through my third piece of pie, I went outside to wait for him. The sun was just sinking behind the clutter of buildings and houses in the west, leaving the sky red. I lit up a cigarette and listened to the distant wail of ambulance sirens and barking dogs and the