James Smythe - The Testimony

We had always known that those who didn’t believe in the Lord would not be saved; that heaven was reserved solely for those people who trusted in the true word of the Lord Jesus Christ, His Father, and the Prophet Joseph Smith (who I was, myself, named for). When I was a younger man, my father had taken me to a mall in Tuscon, and we had spoken to anybody willing to listen to us about the word of the Prophet, no matter their religion: Christian, Jew, Church of the Latter-Day Saints. We had asked them why they believed as they did, and mostly they said, Well, it’s what we were taught to believe. My father told me that this was indoctrination; that they were swayed by older voices than ours telling them the way. If they’ll believe their parents, and their parents’ parents, surely they’ll believe the words of the true Prophet? So I went around and asked them to listen to the word of the true God, to be saved, but they turned me away. On the way back home that evening my father explained that they were just scared, afraid to hear the truth, and that it wasn’t their fault. It’s the will of God that they don’t hear Him, he told me, because God only speaks to those who He wants in His kingdom. That’s why we have the Godless. When the reckoning comes, they’ll learn and try to repent their ways, but we will have spent our lives earning our guarantees into His heaven, at His side. So when Joe couldn’t hear the voice, I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew that Ervil would; or that God would, and Ervil could ask Him.

I waited outside his office to see him for over an hour, because I wanted to speak to him at the first possible opportunity. Emma-Louise, his first wife, made me lemonade while I waited, spoke to me about my family, asked how we all were, and I did the same for her. She was one of eight wives, so it took her longer, but that was fine, because it kept my mind off the conversation that I knew was coming. Ervil didn’t like being asked to commune with the Lord, unless it was of highest importance. Eventually he opened his office door, invited me in. He wasn’t fully dressed; his tie hung around his neck, and he was buttoning his cuffs when I entered. Are you sure? I asked, and he waved my concern away. You’ve seen me swimming in the lake, Joseph; I’m sure you can stomach me doing up my tie in front of you. Everything fine in the shop? he asked, and I told him that it was. Excellent news, he said, but that means that there must be another issue. He smiled, cocked his head, and I wondered if he knew already, if this was his way of testing me. It’s Joseph, my son, I said. Young Joe. Still no reaction from him. When we heard God speak, he didn’t hear it.

Ervil sat bolt forward as if I had scored him. He heard nothing? His whole manner changed, kindly to fractious, friendly to formal. I wondered if you would confer with the Lord about this, to find out if there’s a special reason for this, I asked. He got up from his chair and paced the back of the room. I hated it when he paced. I’ll speak to him, he said, I’ll do it now. Meet me with the boy in ten minutes outside the front of this building, when we’ll have an answer to what we should do for your family. I fetched Joe from eating his breakfast, cleaned his face for him. He wasn’t much of a talker, but I told him to be on his best behaviour. Whatever the Prophet says to you, you tell him how much you love God, you hear? He nodded. You’re going to be fine, I told him.

The Prophet was already outside his house when we got there, but he didn’t say anything as we approached, just stood there like a cowboy, braced. God says that He knows of your boy, he told us. He says that, by not hearing His divine words, he is an abomination of His creation. He says that I am to punish the boy. Joe hid behind my legs, and I told Ervil that he had to be sure about this. It’s punishment, Joseph, he said, and then the boy will hear the words of the Lord. This is God’s word, Joseph. Do you really want to go against God’s word? He reached around my body, grabbed at the nape of my son’s neck, threw him down onto the soil, sending puffs of dust up all around us. You will learn from this punishment, boy, he said, you will learn that there is a true Father, and when He speaks to you, you will listen. Jennifer had to hold me back, but a crowd was swelling, people on their way to work, or just milling around, and they left a circle around Ervil and Joe, like it was some sort of dance. Get up, boy, Ervil said. He was crying the whole time, that’s important, sobbing and snivelling, snot running down his face. Ervil slapped him. Stop crying, boy, and take this like a man. Another slap, another, and this one made Joe fall down again. God told me to lash the boy! shouted Ervil, ever the showman. He had a box with him, a case, that I didn’t see until that moment, and he opened it and pulled out a bullwhip, thick and tarred and cracked from tip to tassel. I stepped in. You will not use that on my son, I said, and that made the Prophet angry. You’re questioning the word of God? he asked. Maybe you need some as well. He snapped it backwards – it flew out, must have been two whole body-lengths of a man – then forward, in a swoop, and the tail drew itself across my legs. Your son has a demon in him! Ervil shouted. God would have me strike the demon out! He raised the whip again, to strike at Joe this time, and I grabbed it, stopped him. Leave my son alone, I said. He bared his teeth, so I pushed him backwards, to keep space between us.

He’s only a child, I said, loud enough that the crowd would hear us, he doesn’t have a demon. You would question God’s word this blatantly? asked Ervil, and I replied that God had spoken to us all, and that it was obvious to me now that none of this – of Colorado City, of the book of Mormon, of Ervil’s speaking to God – none of it was real. Ervil acted as if he had received an arrow to his heart. You must have a devil in you as well, Joseph Jessop, so I will whip it out for you. He swung for me and I stepped forward again, punched him in his eye, and he flopped backwards like he was made out of straw. We’re leaving, I said, because this is no way to treat a child. It’s no way.

Jennifer and I packed the car, got Joe on the back seat. She sat with him, to comfort him, and I drove. We barely had any money, very few clothes; most of what we had was shared, or traded. We asked Eleanor if she wanted to come, and she said that she did not; and because we hadn’t had any children, there was nothing to make her. So I wished her well, and we drove away from Colorado City. We stopped in a diner on the outskirts of one of the nearby towns, ate food quietly. They had a television on in the background, and when I went to use the washroom I noticed an advertisement for a show, saying that they wanted to hear from people whose lives had been changed because of what they were all calling The Broadcast . They were willing to pay handsomely, the lady on the promotion said, so I noted the telephone number and called them from the payphone right outside the diner. They said that they wanted to see us in California as soon as we could drive there. I said that we could be there by the following morning, if I drove through the night.

Angelica Role, television presenter, Los Angeles

The post- Broadcast times represented my highest ratings period since we pulled out of Iraq five years ago. Then we had a two-week Coming Home! celebration, interviews and video journals and reuniting families live on air, and the ratings were a solid 3, going to a 4.2 in the Female 25-to-40 bracket, a 4.6 in the Female 40-plus. Those were Oprah-retirement numbers, and we knew – we thought – that we wouldn’t see numbers like that again, then The Broadcast happened. We had a week of solid reaction pieces booked, mostly people talking about where they were, what they were doing, what they felt The Broadcast had been telling them, talking about the suicides, the aftermath, we had atheists spinning it, we had everything; but we needed something extra-special to end the week on. The easiest people to get on the show were experts, because they wanted to talk about what they knew, or thought they knew, and there was only so much religious posturing that an audience could take. Nobody liked to watch people argue about their beliefs; they wanted gossip and villains. You want the viewer to feel better about themselves, and feel sorry for somebody else; that’s where you hit the golden ratio, the midway point between feeling smug and piteous. So I had the researchers working twenty-four-seven to find somebody who had a different spin on it all, something that might get the numbers up a teensy bit higher than they already were, and on the Thursday night the Jessops fell into our lap.