Jack O'Connell - The Skin Palace

The crowd is silent, transfixed. Boetell’s got it. He makes Raymond Todd look like an amateur. The Reverend cannot be ignored.

The voice backing down now. “Some say, my friends, I will have to pay for my lapse in faith. Like Moses himself, my people, I will have to own up to my failing on that horrible night. I can’t escape my actions any more than any of you can. But I woke from my nightmare with a vision. A vision the good Lord has asked me to pass on to you. There is a time for every purpose, my friends. There is a time to eat and a time to refrain from eating. There is a time for sorrow and a time for joy. And make no mistake about this, ladies and gentlemen, at your very peril, make no mistake,” the voice building again, “there is a time for peace. And there is absolutely a time for war. And this hour, this very moment is the moment we declare the war. We delcare war on the forces of darkness that have taken our land.”

His last words are half-drowned by the crowd as if someone was working a neon applause sign. Sylvia touches Perry’s arm. He turns to her and shakes his head, leans his mouth to her ear and says, “Is this bizarre or what?”

“We’ve got to get out of here,” she says, but he motions toward Ratzinger and gives a guilty shrug.

Boetell calms the faithful, takes in some air and begins again. “Now I don’t need to stand here tonight and tell you who the enemy is. You people know who the enemy is. You have eyes. You can see its presence in every city in this country. But there is surely strength in numbers, friends. And one look into the bosom of this crowd tonight and my heart just surges. Because I know with support like this, we will triumph. You are a prayed-up people. You know the path. You are willing to make the sacrifices. You simply need direction.”

A pause and then a big smile.

“And friends, that is where I come in.”

The shills go crazy. Sylvia closes her eyes and runs a hand over her forehead. She tries to remember if she’s got any Tylenol left in her purse.

“Now back where I come from, Families United for Decency has been growing by leaps and bounds for over a year now. We’ve had our share of skirmishes already. And you people can learn by our mistakes. Our funding has been growing steadily and of late we’ve managed to bring on board what you might call some heavy hitters from the corporate sector. We’ve now got close to a dozen Crusade Buses out on the road at all times. One dozen, my friends. We are out on the road. Now our coordinating committee has determined that we need a high-exposure skirmish. We need to get our story out on those airwaves. We need to dispense the truth to the good people of this nation, to tell the story in big, colorful pictures. And friends,”

Another perfectly timed pause, another broad smile.

“That is where you come in. We have done just a slew of field studies. We have gone from Atlantic to Pacific. From the Canadian border down to the Gulf of Mexico. But it wasn’t until I received those heartbreaking letters from your own Mr. Raymond Todd that I knew, that I positively believed, that we had our theatre, that we had our perfect battleground, that we had been given the site where the real war begins. And my friends, that site is the sad and fallen city of,” a pause, “Quinsigamond itself.”

It’s the big finale. The gallery fills up with all kinds of excited noise and it can’t be coming from Todd’s shills. The real guests, the people Walpole & Lewis invited, they must be caught up in it. And Sylvia has no idea what the Reverend is talking about.

“And so, let the war begin,” he bellows and Ray Todd jumps up to the lectern and the two men start to embrace as a rain of red, white and blue balloons is released from some netting up near the ceiling and the speakers start to play some kind of generic march music.

Sylvia starts to get small, stabbing pains in her abdomen, as if the music had triggered them. She grabs Perry’s arm at the elbow and pulls him back to her and says, “Please, let’s leave. Now.”

He gives her a strange look, comes to her ear and says, “Are you okay? You look really pale.”

“I’m not feeling well,” she says.

He gives a concerned-looking nod and says, “Okay, let’s get you home.”

He claps a hand on Ratzinger’s back and tries to tell him they’re leaving but the room is so loud he has to shout to make himself understood. Ratzinger steps over to Sylvia and says, “Sorry you’re feeling ill,” and she nods and closes her eyes, thinking she’s about to faint. Her knees buckle, but Perry moves fast and catches her and she leans against him as they move for an exit.

“You going to be sick?” he asks, a little panicky as they move out into a hallway.

“Just get me home,” she says, suddenly short of breath.

He steers them toward the garage exit.

“It’s probably the champagne,” he says. “You didn’t eat any dinner, did you?”

She doesn’t want to talk. She just wants to be home. Out of these clothes. Away from this noise and the balloons and the awful music. Away from the sound of Reverend Boetell’s voice. Her head is throbbing and all she can hear is this drawl of an echo saying, That is where you come in.”

Sylvia changes out of her dress as she watches Perry hang up his rented tux. He’s fastidious, making sure the creases of the pants’ legs are lined up, untucking the flaps of the jacket pockets. He talks over his shoulder as he brushes down the lapels with these snapping, karate-like moves of his hand, as if he was attacking something unseen, some microscopic parasite that lived on the surface of the dinner jacket.

“I’m saying you don’t take care of yourself. I’m concerned about your health.”

Sylvia digs a pair of her mother’s old slippers out from under the bed and says, “Perry, you’re concerned about my health? Then please, don’t ever take me to another one of these hell-nights, okay? Please?”

“So the Reverend was a little over the top—”

“Over the top? Perry, we just spent three hours in the goddamn Twilight Zone. What the hell was that all about?”

“Sylvia,” he says in this weary adult tone, as if having to explain this to her is an enormous sap on his energy. “It was a reception for a big new client. That’s all it was. Yes, these people are a bit zealous. Agreed. And yes, maybe the museum was a poor choice for a meeting place. But you know, I didn’t see anyone else reacting quite so strongly.”

“Your friend Candice didn’t seem too happy with the Reverend and his gang.”

“Candice was playing the politicized animal. Candice wants to position herself as the conscience of the firm. She’s expected to spout the opposition view. The big thing about Candice is she knows she can get away with it. She knows Ratzinger gets a little buzz from their skirmishes. It adds to his day. She can’t lose. But I don’t think there’s much behind it. Candice is great at polemic. She should write speeches for a living.”

She sits down on the edge of the bed, pulls a sweatshirt out from underneath the pillow.

“Let me get this straight. Nothing that guy said tonight bothered you? Nothing at all?”

He zips the tux inside the plastic carrying bag, hangs it on the back of the closet door and says, “You know, in the long run it’s going to be cheaper for me to buy one of these.”

And it’s a second before Sylvia realizes he means a tuxedo. That he should buy a tuxedo. That he expects to be going to enough black-tie affairs that it would be cost-effective to make the purchase.

“Perry,” she says.

He comes over and sits down next to her.