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By Root 1123 0

a string on his flattop. A few people yawned, and others began whispering among themselves, already fidgety with what seemed to be the beginning of a boring service by a couple of shy and wasted newcomers. Willard wished he’d slipped out to the parking lot and found someone with a jug before things got started. He had never felt comfortable worshipping God around strangers packed together inside a building. “We ain’t passing no basket tonight, folks,” Brother Roy finally said after the cripple nodded that he was ready. “Don’t want no money for doing the Lord’s work. Me and Theodore can get by on the sweetness of the air if we have to, and, believe me, we’ve done it a many a time. Savin’ souls ain’t about the filthy dollar.” Roy looked to the old preacher, who managed a sick smile and nodded in reluctant agreement. “Now we gonna summon the Holy Ghost to this little church tonight, or, I swear to you all, we gonna die trying.” And with that, the fat boy hit a lick on the guitar and Brother Roy leaned back and let out a high, awful wail that sounded as if he was trying to shake the very gates of heaven loose. Half the congregation nearly jumped out of their seats. Willard chuckled when he felt his mother jerk against him.

The young preacher started pacing up and down the center of the aisle asking people in a loud voice, “Now what is it you most afraid of?” He waved his arms and described the loathsomeness of hell—the filth, horror, and despair—and the eternity that stretches out in front of everyone forever and ever without end. “If your worst fear is rats, then Satan will make sure you get your fill of ’em. Brothers and sisters, they’ll chew your face off while you lay there unable to lift a single finger against them, and it won’t ever cease. A million years in eternity ain’t even an afternoon here in Coal Creek. Don’t even try and figure that up. Ain’t no human head big enough to calculate misery like that. Remember that family over in Millersburg got murdered in their beds last year? The ones had their eyes cut out by that lunatic? Imagine that for a trillion years—that’s a million million, people, I looked it up—being tortured like that, but never dying. Having your peepers plucked out of your head with a bloody ol’ knife over and over again, forever. I hope them poor people was right with the Lord when that maniac slipped in their window, I surely do. And really, brothers and sisters, we can’t even picture the ways the Devil’s got to torment us, ain’t no man ever been evil enough, not even that Hitler feller, to come up with the ways Satan is gonna make the sinners pay come the Judgment Day.”

While Brother Roy preached, Theodore kept up a rhythm on the guitar that matched the flow of the words, his eyes following the other’s every movement. Roy was his cousin on his mother’s side, but sometimes the fat boy wished they weren’t so closely related. Though he was satisfied with just being able to spread the Gospel with him, he’d had feelings for a long time that he couldn’t pray away. He knew what the Bible said, but he couldn’t accept that the Lord thought such a thing a sin. Love was love, the way Theodore saw it. Heck, hadn’t he proved that, showed God that he loved him more than anyone? Taking that poison until he wound up a cripple, showing the Lord that he had the faith, even though sometimes now he couldn’t help thinking that maybe he’d been a little too enthusiastic. But for now, he had God and he had Roy and he had his guitar, and that was all he needed to get by in this world, even if he never did get to stand up straight again. And if Theodore had to prove to Roy how much he loved him, he’d gladly do that, too, anything he asked. God was Love; and He was everywhere, in everything.

Then Roy hopped back up on the altar, reached under Brother Theodore’s wheelchair, and brought out a gallon jar. Everyone leaned forward a bit on the benches. A dark mass seemed to be boiling inside it. Someone called out, “Praise God,” and Brother Roy said, “That’s right, my friend, that’s right.” He held up the jar and gave it a