Mark Dunn - American Decameron

The evangelist’s name is Proctor.

So it’s all of us standing in line at the Riverton Bank and Trust, and two tellers in their cages, and Mr. Lanell, the bank manager, and Mr. Lanell’s secretary, Miss Philpot, and the security guard whose real name I don’t know, because most everybody just calls him Pops.

It’s about twelve-thirty in the afternoon and everybody’s in a good mood because the weather’s started to warm up and everything’s budding and blooming, and another devil-hard Wyoming winter has been happily put out to spring pasture.

The preacher named Proctor says, “That’s a good one!” to Billy Sherman, although he was probably preaching just last night, in fact, about the “sin” in today’s “ cin -ema.” Then, not to be outdone in the way of comical observations, Reverend Proctor starts singing his own version of “Shall We Gather at the River,” which starts off:

Shall we gather at the RivertonBankandTrust .

The beautiful ,

The beautiful

RivertonBankandTrust .

Gather with the depositors at the RivertonBankandTrust

That sits in the middle of town .

Everyone laughs politely. Even the two men who have just stepped inside the bank unnoticed by anybody but me. They laugh and then almost in the same breath they order us all to drop to the floor because, you see, they aim to rob this bank. Pops the security guard goes for his gun and the younger of the two men cold-cocks him with his revolver, and Pops is put temporarily out of commission right on the spot.

We drop to the floor as we’ve been instructed to do, and the older of the two bank robbers motions for all the employees to come join us, so within a couple of minutes we’re all spread out mostly face down on the floor while the younger robber goes to empty all the tellers’ cash drawers.

Well, one of the tellers must have pushed the silent alarm button, because all of a sudden we hear the sound of a police siren (I guess there’s no such thing as a silent police siren), and the older robber gets the bank manager up and has him lock the door and then he reminds the rest of us to stay right where we are if we know what’s good for us. The younger robber is at the window now and he goes, “We’re surrounded,” but the older robber doesn’t seem all that upset. The phone rings and it’s the police chief and he wants the bank robbers to know that there’s no way that the two of them are going to be allowed to leave the bank with both the money and their lives and they had best give themselves up.

The older robber smiles and scratches his itchy forehead with the muzzle of his gun and says that he has a baker’s dozen worth of hostages, and just like something out of a Humphrey Bogart picture he makes it clear that he’ll kill every one of us if the cops storm the building. So don’t try anything.

On hearing that she’s a hostage, Billy’s mother starts shaking like she has the St. Vitus lay-down dance and one of the tellers tries to comfort her and the evangelist starts to pray over her.

“That’s good,” says the older bank robber, whose name is Cutler. “You pray for all these folks, because they’re gonna need God on their side if they’re ever gonna see the outside of this bank building with living eyeballs.”

Whatever that means.

“And what if God ain’t on their side?” asks the preacher, fairly conversational in his tone.

“What do you mean?” asks Cutler, who seems a little put out over having to deal with a problematically philosophical man of the cloth.

“I mean ,” says the preacher, pulling himself up into a seated position, “if it comes down to negotiating over which of these poor innocent children of our good Lord get to go free and which must remain behind as your human bucklers, who are you gonna release? Those who live by the word of the Lord or those heathens who deny Christ’s love and habitate in the province of sin?”

The two bank robbers share a look with one another that says neither has ever considered criteria for which hostages should get their freedom and which should have to stay behind, other than the usual setup that says women and children and old men in need of heart-saving nitroglycerin pills should get first dibs.

I study the face of that revival preacher to try to understand for myself if he’s working a plan to get us all released under the general umbrella of Christian mercy, and I get to wondering, even in my own far-from-developed fourteen-year-old brain, if there might be brilliance behind his piercing blue-eyed gaze, the kind of God-given gaze that people farther east who care a little more about such things would be slightly more susceptible to.

“My father was a preacher himself,” says the older robber named Cutler, “and he taught me a thing or two about the prerogatives of strong faith.” The strangely well-spoken bank robber interrupts his confession by boot-kicking poor Pops, who had just begun to rouse himself from his temporary stupor. “And the rewards that come to he that lives a good life in the spirit. So I say this unto you, Parson: If you want to use the faith and spirituality of your fellow captives here to decide who gets out of this place alive and who gets to stay behind and share my fate and the fate of my partner Codges here, by all means you go right ahead. Why don’t you start your assaying with that bank officer over there? He looks like a Jew.”

The preacher looks over at the bank manager, Mr. Lanell. “You, sir: are you a Jew? Are you a denier of the divinity of Christ Jesus?”

Mr. Lanell shakes his head. “I’m not a Jew.”

“But do you deny Christ, nonetheless?” asks Proctor.

“Of course not. I accepted Christ as my personal savior when I was eleven.”

“And what a joy it is to hear it,” says Proctor as the telephone begins to ring. The younger robber Codges answers it.

Codges says, “Yeah, yeah,” into the phone and then turns to Cutler and says, “The police chief wants to know if we can send out a couple of the hostages in a show of good faith.”

“It’s them who oughta be showing us good faith!” the older bank robber rails. “What kind of back-asswards cowboy town is this?”

“A Christian town,” offers Miss Philpot, the bank manager’s secretary. “We’re all Christians. I know all these folks except for that uranium man over there. We’re every one of us good Bible-believing Christians. Except for that uranium man, whom I don’t know.”

“So what are you?” inquires the preacher of the man in coveralls who works for an out-of-town uranium prospecting outfit.

“I’m a — a Christian Scientist,” the man admits in a slightly stuttery voice, his head barely raised from the floor.

The preacher puckers his lips in thought. “Those Christian Scientists are a good bunch. They got faith all right. But I don’t much trust ’em.”

The uranium man emits a pained sigh.

“Come to think of it, I don’t much trust any of these folks to be dyed-in-the-wool followers of our blessed Lord,” Proctor continues, “until they show me their religious bona fides. I’m gonna need a little time to talk to these folks and find out what kind of Christians they are. I haven’t seen a single one of them at my tent revival.”

The younger of the two female tellers raises her hand. “I was at your tent show — last Friday night, in fact.”

“You were?” Proctor smiles, pleased.

“Reverend Proctor, we really don’t have time for—” Cutler taps his foot impatiently. “I need to give up two hostages, and as soon as possible, if you please.”

“Well, naturally, my lifelong journey down the highway of righteousness,” replies Proctor, “should dictate my inclusion, although I would leave it to you to make the final decision in that regard. But allow me to cogitate for a moment over which of these lovely young women deserves that second spot.” Proctor turns to the young female teller. “Were you really there, missy? Why didn’t I see you? I hardly ever forget a face as pretty as yours.”