Kate Wilhelm - Let the Fire Fall

All this and much more passed through Obie’s mind very quickly that night when he learned that his son was only human after all. A thin adolescent, slow to mature, not terribly bright, afraid and feared, but human. He got very drunk that night.

“Find me the kid,” he said to Merton, waving his glass, sloshing Scotch all over the thick Persian rug, and the antique couch. “Bring him up here to me and let’s see him heal himself. Physician heal thyself, that’s what we’ll say to the little bastard. And we’ll write our own passion play. Thats it, passion play. He has the passion and we have the play. ’’N we’ll spring my kid out of that fancy prison. My poor little boy in prison all his life.” He wept noisily, was sick noisily, drank some more and finally took Dee Dee to bed, where he did things with her that he hadn’t done for years. Not being God or the father of God any longer made a difference.

When Obie finally fell asleep Dee Dee crept from his bed, aching, bruised, and happy,. and made her way to her own room again. Merton was waiting for her. She said, “You’ve gotta be kidding!”

“Relax, honey. I want to know one thing only. Is the old Obie back with us for good?”

Dee Dee simply nodded. Merton grinned. “Okay, baby. See you in the morning. This changes everything, kid. But everything.” He opened the door and stopped to look back at her appraisingly. “Boy, that sure must have been a ball!”

Dee Dee looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She was a mess. Her loins ached. Her back ached. Her breasts were sore, her jaws ached. There were red marks from pinches and bites, and a bruise on her thigh, and another on her shoulder. When her gaze reached her face she was startled; she never had looked prettier.

She soaked in a tub of sudsy water and gradually the aches faded. She started to think of Merton’s remark that everything was changed now. It was true. Obie had been his own convert, and now he was a backslider. She didn’t know how that would affect the movement. She found that she didn’t really care right then.

Actually the movement was not to be affected very much at all. During the time that it mattered, while it was being formed, the leader had been a believer, and that is necessary for a successful movement. He had been a high-powered salesman who believed in his product. After selling the customer it doesn’t matter if the seller loses faith. The payments are not his concern. The machinery was set up, operant, swelling day by day; this was the concern for the administration now; the buyers would bring in others without his help. If he stopped all public appearances immediately the movement would continue to grow through its great momentum, and through the machinations of the businessmen who were the actual organizers. A man of spiritual mien is the needed ingredient at the beginning of a spiritual movement, but after it is under way, his mysticism and fuzzy thinking are a hindrance. It’s fine to produce wine and bread for the masses in the beginning, but as a daily occurrence it is better to organize tithing and bank accounts and the purchase of tax free bonds and real estate, and rules governing the official hierarchy and its exercise of power.

It is wise to provide a martyr now and then. Let the people concentrate on him and they are less likely to try to see behind him to the organization of the business called religion.

The nearest to a martyr the Church had produced as yet was in the person of a young draft dodger back in the beginnings. He had been a drug user: LSD, pot, tobacco, bennies…. He had tried everything. He had given Everett Slocum the formula for RUT, the first psychedelic aphrodisiac that never failed to produce the desired effects, and shortly after this the FDA had closed in on him and he had leaped from his tenth-floor window, flying all the way down, to end in a landing that was less than perfect. His martyrdom was short-lived because it was found that the ingredient that made RUT different from other psychedelics was the bacteria that swarmed on the hands and under the black nails of the young alchemist. It wasn’t the staph so much as the antibodies he produced against staph, and this was such a personal, unique product that with his solo flight the secret was lost.

So the Church was ripe for a martyr. And that fall Merton put into operation the largest manhunt in the history of any group outside the federal government, the search for the candidate most likely to succeed in martyrdom: Blake Daniels.

Macon, Oct. 23

Today the Council of Southern Protestant Churches extended full membership to the recently organized Southern branch of the Voice of God Church….

Macon, Feb. 3

Inauguration ceremonies for the new officers of the Council of Southern Churches (formerly the Council of Southern Protestant Churches), were disrupted when a small group of protestors demonstrated in the aisles, forcing the postponement of the swearing-in of Fred Smiley as the organization’s new president. Mr. Smiley later was sworn in in (I private ceremony in the anteroom of the Voice of God Church on the corners of Hall and Seventh Streets. Mr. Smiley issued a statement following the ceremonies that intimated that his first business as president of the organization would be to rid its ranks of troublemakers.

Atlanta, Apr. 16

In the post six months twenty-seven Georgia ministers have resigned their pulpits and churches, and a number estimated to be triple that figure are said to be waiting for the recognition of resignations already tendered.

Atlanta Courier , Editorial, May 1

Four separate communities of central Georgia were hit by renewed terrorist raids during the night. In the town of Americus the small whitewashed Methodist church was burned to the ground, and two men who tried to put out the flames were severely beaten, one of them remaining in critical condition today. They have asked that their names be withheld in fear of retaliation to their families.

In the community of Fitzgerald the Church of Our Lady of Tranquility was fire-bombed and two sisters were burned as they fought to remove sacred objects. In Cedar Hills the Cedar Hills Baptist Church was burned to the ground and masked men prevented the volunteer firemen from entering the area to extinguish the flames. The pastor of the church is missing today. And in Douglas another Baptist church was put to the torch.

No arrests have been mode, and no witnesses hove come forward to identify any of the arsonists Involved. Investigations are under way in each of the communities, and it is hoped that on outraged citizenry will demand that the current investigations be more fruitful than those in the recent past. Such violence aimed at the religious community cannot be tolerated in a free society.

Chicago Sun-Times , Apr. 2

In the trial of the decade, the State of Illinois vs. Monsignor Bellamy , opening testimony was heard today. The State’s first witnesses were self-confessed sadists, arsonists, butchers….

Chicago Sun-Times , Apr. 3

Transcript from the testimony token at today’s session of the State vs. Monsignor Bellamy. Continuing on the stand following his testimony for the State yesterday is Harry Scallopini, under cross-examination by the defense attorney, Timothy Jackson.

Mr. Jackson: Now, Mr. Scallopini, you said yesterday that you personally witnessed several of these, uh, operations, but that you took no actual part in them. Is that right?

Scallopini: Yeah, that’s right.

Mr. Jackson: Mr. Scallopini, have you served time in prison?

Mr. Lloyd: Object.

Mr. Jackson: Retract. Mr. Scallopini, did you know the deceased?

Scallopini: Who?

Mr. Jackson: John Krebs. The dead man.