“To drink.” He turns around to look at me.
To drink? What the fuck. Guy drinks poison and plays with poisonous snakes? I mean okay, he’s charismatic as hell, maybe the most charismatic man I’ve ever laid eyes on personally, but I’ve got four men on Death Row whose fate could be hanging on him and some street kid he’s recently converted. What if he actually drinks this shit and it kills him?
“He drinks cyanide?” I parrot dumbly.
“When God tells him,” comes the answer.
When God tells him.
Up at the altar, Hardiman grabs the jar of cyanide, holds it aloft.
‘
And if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.
’
I’ve seen people, holy men in India, walk across a bed of white-hot coals that should have burned their feet up to the ankles, and stroll away without even a hotfoot. And yes, in my forays into the Native American church, I’ve seen (actually not with my own eyes, but heard from extremely reliable sources) miracles as farfetched as drinking poison from a mason jar.
Hardiman regards the poison in his hands. He brings the jar to his face, sticks his head in, takes a deep breath.
“Lawdy!” he exclaims. “That cyanide do burn the sinuses.”
His followers laugh.
“Amen,” they cry. “Say it!”
He takes a long, almost regretful look at it; then he places it on the side of the altar.
“Later for that,” he says. “Maybe later.”
He steps to the center of the altar, looks down at the congregation.
“Do any of you know Jesus?” he asks softly.
“Amen,” calls back his flock. “Yes, well, Lord.”
“But do you
know
Jesus?” he asks again. “Does He live with you, in your heart?”
“Yes!”
“Amen!”
“Do you
know
Jesus, in your
heart?
” he asks yet again.
“
YES
!”
“
AMEN
!”
“You know Him!”
“Yes!”
“In your heart!”
“Yes!”
“You know Jesus!”
“Yes!”
“Completely!”
“Yes!”
“Without reservation!”
“Yes!”
“In your heart!”
“Yes!”
“Completely!”
“Yes!”
Near me, a woman faints. Her neighbors lay her on her chair, turn back to Hardiman without missing a beat.
“What a friend I have in Jesus,” Hardiman starts to sing, a rich basso-profundo worthy of Paul Robeson. The congregation joins in, singing lustily.
I don’t know many of the words, but I, too, join in. It feels like the right thing to do; not from obligation, but from belonging. I’m beginning to understand why a man who would kill another man (so Scott Ray claims), stab him forty-seven times and cut off his cock, would readily, willingly confess. The Reverend Hardiman is a powerful force.
We sing several more hymns. One thing I’ve realized is that there are no other blacks in here besides Hardiman, and that this fact seems not to matter at all. He is their shepherd—that’s all that counts.
The testifying begins. Those that have been saved, and those that haven’t but will be, here and now, come forward. They talk fervently of their conversion to Jesus, how Jesus took them out of the pit of darkness and loneliness and sin and put them on the path of righteousness. It’s moving stuff, but I’ve seen it before, it isn’t as novel and unique as dancing around with two poisonous vipers. I’m not going to be saved, not tonight anyway, despite what I’ve seen, so I’m antsy. I want to sit down with Scott Ray and find out if there’s anything to him beyond this.
These services are obviously long and drawn-out. I look at my watch; it’s already ten-thirty and the end is nowhere in sight. As quietly and unobtrusively as I can, I leave my seat and go outside.
The cold air feels good. I sit on a damp, worn railing, look up at the sky. It’s become cloudy, I can feel the rain closing, see the moon veiled by drifts, stars banked in the fog. The voices from inside recede as I let my thoughts wander, submerging into the chalky darkness surrounding me and the church and the clearing.
“Too much for you?”
I turn with a start; I hadn’t heard anyone coming.
“No,” I answer, looking up at her. “I needed some space. I’m new to this.”
She approaches from the closed door of the church, wearing a man’s old car coat to ward off the chill. I recognize her as one of the snake-dancers. Up close she’s pretty, probably about my age, her face un-lined, freckled even in winter, large green eyes flecked with hazel set in milk-white skin, her middle-of-the-back-length auburn hair now done up in a demure bun. No makeup, not even lipstick. A little work and she’d be close to beautiful.
“Evelyn Decatur,” she says by way of introduction. “Welcome to our church.”
“Will Alexander. Thank you.” Very formal we are.
She nods politely, her greeting.
“They’ve talked of you,” she informs me.
“They?”
“Reverend Hardiman … and Scott.”
“Oh.” My guard goes up; was she sent out here to birddog me?
From her coat she takes a crumpled pack of cigarettes, lights up without offering me one, inhales deeply. She smokes like a European woman, like I imagine Simone Signoret would have smoked, fully and without apology.
“Scott’s a good boy,” she tells me, taking a long drag. “Now that he’s found Christ.”
“Uh huh,” I say noncommittally.
“He made his confession last month,” she continues.
“To everyone?” I can’t hide my surprise and concern. A public confession to several hundred born-again Christians could taint the case somehow. It feels strange; all of this does.
“To God,” she answers, taking another long pull on her weed. She turns, fixing her gaze on me, her open coat revealing her full, shapely woman’s body under her wool dress. I was wrong—she doesn’t need any work, she’s fine just as she is.
“Are you a Christian?” she asks me abruptly.
“No,” I say, almost jumping. It’s not a question I’m used to being asked. “I was born of Christian parents,” I add, feeling some guilty compulsion to explain, “but no, personally, I’m not.” I feel myself flush.
She leans against the railing, her body close to mine but not touching, smoking her cigarette down to the filter, looking up at the now clouded-over starless sky. Men dream, at one time or another, of chucking it all, starting a new life, a new identity. In that imaginary new beginning they meet a woman. When I have those thoughts the woman is earthy, grounded, not a captive of the moment, but timeless. She is this woman next to me, leaning against the railing.
Despite myself, I check her ring finger. Unadorned.
“Are you going to come back in for the healing?” she asks.
“Should I?”
She holds me with a look for a moment, without answering. Then she finishes her cigarette, flicks it into the darkness, goes back inside. I watch her, her bare white legs under the coat, her piled-up hair. They sent their best-looking woman out to make sure I didn’t get away, that whatever they were doing didn’t scare me off.
She was the right one to send. I stand up, follow her in.
“BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING,
let me explain something. I am not your lawyer. Anything you say to me is not privileged. I can use it against you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Scott Ray looks at me, unblinking.
“I killed him.”
We’re in the church, down front. Scott Ray, Hardiman, and me. Everyone else has gone. Most of the lights are out.
I’d sat through the miracles. They went on for a couple of hours, healing the lame, bringing sight to the blind, what I’d expected. They were good, but I’d seen such stuff before. I was antsy for my own show.
Finally, it had ended. There was an offering, much hugging and kissing, more testifying. I’d waited in the back until the church was clear so I could hopefully get at what had been tormenting me for more than a year.
Ray and Hardiman are sitting in a first-row pew. I’ve got a folding chair, opposite them, the altar to my back. The only lights left on are coming from some unseen alcove tucked in behind the altar, up high, giving their faces the look of vampire faces in silent movies. It feels like we’re inside a big, drafty cave. I check the time when we start: 1:30 A.M., eastern standard time.
“Until you tell me otherwise,” I inform Ray, “this is going to be off the record. For your protection. Whatever notes I take will be my work-product notes. The state can’t touch them, I promise.”
Ray nods. “I got nothing to hide.”
“Even so, I don’t want my case tainted because of a procedural mess-up. I can’t have some technicality screwing this up, you understand?”
“I ain’t concerned with no technicalities,” Ray says, looking at Hardiman for approval.
“He wants to walk with the Lord,” Hardiman says. “That’s all he wants now.”
“I want to get straight with Jesus,” Ray affirms. “I can’t go to my Maker with a murder hanging over me.”
“He’s got to live by holy scripture,” Hardiman says. “He’s got to square himself with the Lord’s commandments.”
“Thou shalt not kill,” Ray tells me, his face expressionless.
“I agree,” I say. “Even if it didn’t say so in the Bible I’d still feel that way; wouldn’t you?”
“He’s got to do this by scripture,” Hardiman says again.
What the hell does that mean? Maybe you do it that way in the Middle East, where the Koran is literally the law, but this is America, where the courts are secular. Do they understand that?
“I hear what you’re saying,” I tell them gingerly. “But what you’ve got to understand is that getting straight with the Lord, Jesus, whoever, isn’t the same thing as being on trial in the United States. Religion isn’t part of the judicial system in this country. I realize you’re intelligent men and you know that, but I have to make it clear. We can’t be muddying the waters by making this a religious experience.”
They look at me dubiously.
“God may forgive you, but the state of New Mexico may not, is what I’m saying,” I tell them.
“God’s forgiveness is all we want,” Hardiman says. “If the state demands its pound of flesh, so be it.”
“Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God that which is God’s,” Ray tells me.
“As long as we understand that,” I say.
“And by thy confession will ye be cleansed of your sins,” Hardiman says.
Shit. I should’ve taken a crash course in the Bible before I came here. They’re going to scripture me to death. I’ve got to get this on track before we fall off the deep end. I look Scott Ray right between the eyes—hold him with my stare.
“You were in Santa Fe,” I say.
He nods.
“When did you arrive?” I ask. “How many days before Richard Bartless was murdered?”
It’s like swimming in molasses. Wearying to the bone. But little by little, the story emerges. And the more I hear, the deeper and deeper I’m sucked in.
“I’d been drifting around, not doing much of anything, just bumming around. I’d been down in Mexico, Texas, Arizona, all over the place, hanging out. Dealing drugs was what I was doing mostly. Nickel-and-dime shit, nothing big, nothing could get me in trouble with the big boys. That and getting laid, more than anything else. Fucking. Any cunt would let me stick my dick into. Fresh young snatch, the younger the better. Sometimes I’d do a daughter and her mother, too. The older ones, they really like it. They appreciate a young, hung stud. One time I did two sisters and the mother. Better’n a three-dog night in the Yukon. Dealing drugs and scoring pussy, life in the fast lane …”
“It was an abomination unto the Lord,” Hardiman says fiercely.
“Amen to that,” Scott replies. “I know that now; if there’s one thing I know it’s that. I was evil, pure and simple.”
“To fornicate outside the vows of marriage is a sin,” the preacher intones.
“That is for sure,” Scott affirms. “Which is why I am now celibate,” he tells me, “and will be until the right woman comes along, who is willing to forgive this sinner and join me in marriage.”
He says it all with a straight face. I’m having trouble keeping one; that he actually believes what he’s saying makes it even harder.
From somewhere in the back, Evelyn Decatur materializes, so quietly she’s almost upon us before I notice her. The other woman who had been on the pulpit, dancing with the snakes, is with her. They carry trays of coffee and sweet rolls.
Hardiman puts a massive arm around the other woman’s waist. She smiles down at him.
“This is my wife, Rachael,” he tells me.
“Hello,” she says, turning the smile on me.
“And this is her sister, Evelyn, who you’ve already met, I presume.”
“Yes,” I say, looking at her, smiling politely, being smiled politely at in return. My guess is she’s younger.
“She is herself unmarried,” Hardiman says.
“That’s too bad,” I say. “For the men around here.”
He laughs the appreciative laugh, the mutual knowing of two men who understand women and the need men have for them.
“That’s true. That’s very true. But her standards are high.” Teasing her: “very high.”
She smiles at him. No blush, no girlishness rising to the bait.
“How do you take your coffee?” she asks me.
“Black,” I tell her. “At this time of night.”
She pours for me, hands me the cup, our fingers touching for the briefest of seconds. She doesn’t notice. I feel like a schoolboy, trying to screw up the courage to ask the prom queen out for a date. Hardiman has his arm firmly around his wife’s waist. His wife snuggles close to him, a happy and contented woman.
We have our coffee and rolls, the women joining us. Everyone else takes cream and sugar with their coffee, heavy on the sugar. The rolls are homemade, very sweet. I eat two; Evelyn eats half of one, gives me the other half. I try to taste her fingers on it where she tore it, but it’s too sweet.
The women leave, as suddenly and quietly as they came. Scott turns to Hardiman. The preacher nods. Scott starts his account again, where he left off.
We go until dawn. Slowly, laboriously. As the hours pass Hardiman gradually becomes more central to the narrative, interjecting, reminding, changing. Scott acquiesces at every turn. And the biblical shit is maddening, it’s like a mind-fuck, like whatever is real isn’t, unless there’s a biblical quotation or phrase to buttress it. And then it’ll turn back on itself, every argument has a counter-argument, because in scripture you can find two sides to virtually any issue or problem, it’s kept millions of scholars in business for millennia: In First Corinthians so-and-so said this … but then in Jeremiah, so-and-so said this, which is the complete opposite. On and on, all night long, I have to strain to separate the wheat from the chaff, what is acceptable in American jurisprudence and what will have to be settled by an authority higher than all of us.