Way Down on the High Lonely Read Online Free PDF

collared shirts with unfashionable ties. There were a few young mothers there as well, some with toddlers in tow. The kids were all neat, clean, nicely dressed, and well behaved.
    From the back of the church Neal felt as if he were looking through one of those old stereoscopes, because in back of the gaggles of kids, behind the altar, was a mural of Jesus himself talking to a bunch of clean, neat, well-dressed, well-behaved little kids, and the inscription, SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME.
    The contrast between the scrubbed interior of the church and the variegated hell on the outside was, to say the least, stark. Neal had the image of one of those old western movies where the settlers had circled the wagons against the band of marauding Indians outside. The place was just so … white.
    Everyone was white. The older folks, the working men, the young mothers, the kids. Jesus was certainly white, with blue eyes and long brown hair that was a day at the beach away from being blond. The kids who had come unto him were white, looking as if they’d be more at home in Sweden than Judea. Neal hadn’t seen so many blonds since the last time he’d gotten drunk enough to watch the Miss America Pageant.
    “There’s a marked lack of melanin in here,” he whispered to Graham as they slid into a pew in the back.
    “Whatever that is,” Graham answered.
    Neal was about to answer when a tall, silver-haired man in a blue suit came out from behind the altar and mounted the pulpit. The silver hair stood up in a high brush cut, his tanned face looked like it had been fashioned with an adz, and his eyes were bluer than his suit, if not quite as shiny.
    The congregation scurried into their seats and sat in silent anticipation.
    “C. Wesley Carter,” Graham whispered.
    “See Spot run,” answered Neal.
    “Good afternoon, everyone,” C. Wesley Carter said. He had a voice like a good trumpet, clear and sharp without being brassy or harsh. It was a good voice, and he knew it.
    “Good afternoon, Reverend Carter!” the congregation answered.
    “Welcome to our Wednesday afternoon study session. I’m glad you all fought your way safely to our little clearing in the jungle.”
    Jungle? Neal thought. Well …
    “I’m very excited today,” Carter said, “because we are back to the beginning of the whole cycle in our lectures on true Christian identity, and new beginnings always fire me up. Of course, when you’ve given this lecture as many times as I have … well, let’s face it, when you’ve heard this lecture as many times as some of you have … well, I won’t be offended if some of you just want to get up and leave!”
    “I want to get up and leave,” Neal whispered.
    “Shut up,” answered Graham.
    Reverend Carter paused for the audience to fill in the laugh. A few of the veteran listeners did, and one old man even yelled, “No way, Reverend!
    Carter continued, “But I think that there are certain things we can never hear often enough, don’t you? I guess that’s one reason they wrote the Bible down, so we can read those sacred words as often as we need to. And in these troubled times—and if you don’t think they’re troubled, you just take a look outside that door—we need to hear them a whole lot. We need to remind ourselves who we are. We need to reaffirm our true Christian identity! Our true Christian identity as the chosen people!”
    The congregation burst into applause. Graham politely smacked his real hand into his artificial one.
    “Now, who are the chosen people?” Carter asked, presumably rhetorically. “Well, the Bible tells us, so let’s start right there. In fact, let’s begin at the beginning in the Book of Genesis.”
    Carter opened an enormous old Bible on the pulpit.
    “He’s not going to read the whole thing, is he?” Neal asked Graham.
    “Shut the hell up,” hissed Graham.
    “Nice talk, in church.”
    A bunch of people in the church flipped Bibles open to the Book of