Ghosting (6 page)

Ponder quits the hands-on approach and waves to the seats in back as he returns to the stage, and Greuel has not heard this kind of bleacher stomping since a state-final basketball game. The musicians watch Ponder raise his arms again, Bible in one hand, fingers splayed in the other. With a nod to the band he turns back to the audience, and when his arms fall the music stops and the house lights come up. The applause continues in a great surge, then begins to teeter and fall, a stream trickling over many rocks, as Ponder pats the air with his hands, repeating that they should get this party started. He thanks them all for being there, for just
being
. The crowd doesn’t quiet until he announces,
Let us pray
, and begins the invocation.

“Dear God look at these beautiful people. Look at these folks in their finest come to honor Your name and Your Word on this beautiful Sunday morning with which You have blessed us. We ask You to watch over our congregation and to guide us in Your name and show us the way. Lead us to Your promised prosperity. Let me hear you say Amen.”

The audience complies as one. Greuel and Noe snigger as Grady Creed, surprising even himself, chimes in.

“What?” Creed shrugs them off, pouting, “Caint hurt can it?” He leans forward in his foldout chair as though wanting to hear the preacher better.

“The Lord guides us, friends. Even at those times we don’t think we can feel Him, He’s there looking over us all. I don’t know about you but I can feel His benevolent gaze right now, His all-seeing eyes on this house of worship. You know what He wants us to know? He wants us to know He’s there, guiding. He wants us to know that each one of us is precious to Him. I’ve been contemplating this for some time now, after meetings with so many of our members, good people who find themselves in a bind they didn’t ask for. A
financial
bind. Who here can’t relate to that business?”

Affirmative murmurs wave through the audience.

“People ask me about bankruptcy. That’s a spirit-killer right there, I don’t have to tell you. Bankruptcy. I listened to one gentleman the other day, a good man you can be sure, works two or three jobs, he could be sitting next to you just now. He was talking about his debts, the difficulties of making ends meet, balloon payments on too much house and the kids going to good schools—we all know if you want a child educated right you can’t chance that public school might send home some day some indoctrinated stranger who’s there to tell you everything you believe and been guided by is wrong. Am I right? And those private schools aren’t cheap, are they? Big government is happy to take our tax money and put it in every cause you don’t believe in, but you’re on your own if you want to give your child the best education money can buy, some place where you have a
say
in what he learns. I
am
right.”

Hurrahs scatter through the congregation, patches of applause flare and flutter about. Greuel’s attention is wandering already. On the altar up there, beside an untouched, empty chalice and what looks like a cross bound in leather, sets of car keys hang from a small stand, the logos of luxury manufacturers recognizable even from this distance: Acura, BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz. He understands none of it but likes the spirit of the place.

“It hurt my heart to see this good man,” Ponder continues. “We prayed together, went over his options—how do we do that? Come on, you know already.
We opened our hearts together to the Lord
. You know what happened then? God came into my heart. He spoke to me as He often does, and I’m not the only one. He said, ‘Hey there Brother Gil’ (that’s what He calls me, Brother Gil, He never says Mr. Ponder or anything formal like that), He says, ‘Why are you so concerned for this man and his situation?
Sans souci,
my child. I’ve got it taken care of.’ I said to him, ‘God I don’t doubt that, you know I don’t, but could you show me how to bring this man some peace so he can sleep at night?’ And then God points out that He addressed just this same issue a long time ago. He told me to check out Psalm sixty-six twelve.”

The preacher hoists his book aloft and sifts the pages. Around Greuel various attendees sift pages through their own bibles. When
Ponder finds the desired verse he raises his free hand and signals to the audience with splayed fingers again.

“
Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place
. ‘How’s that strike you,’ God asked. I told Him He was the Man. He reminded me: God’s Will never leads you where God’s Grace will not protect you. And He reminded me again, ‘Check Deuteronomy eight-eighteen.’
But remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth
.”

Brother Ponder snaps his book shut and drops it on the podium with a resounding thud, satisfied to have argued an airtight case. His hands settle on each hip, elbows akimbo, and he bends toward his congregation. Stretched in this way, a spiking dark blue tattoo stripe creeps over his collar from beneath a swath of makeup. Greuel snorts.

“Doesn’t that make you feel a little bit better? Think about it: God made each of us—that’s a given. He doesn’t create us just to watch us flail and fail. That’s what mice and all His other little creatures are for. He made
us
in
His
image. What God wants for those in His image is a successful—no, not just successful, but
victorious
—course in this life. He’s always reminding His dim creations that if we would
listen to Him,
we are going to be all right. We’re going to be just fine, He’s already got it all figured out
for
us. ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for’—that was said by a man I think a few of you here have heard of. His name was Jesus and he’s saying: Sow your faith in Him. What’s that mean? It means: Don’t go hoping you’re going to change your situation overnight, buying lottery tickets with the chance you’ll score. Lottery winners, that’s just poor people with money. They get it only a while before it’s gone, because they’re not wealthy in the Holy Spirit.
You
have to be smarter than that.

“
I want to get results.
” He points his finger at the audience, allowing his words to ring around the open auditorium. Then he continues. “Isn’t that what we’re asking? Well God’s got the answer. He’s been telling us since Adam and Eve: ‘You want results? Come to Me.’ He’s saying, plant a little mustard seed—come on, folks, we all know the parable—
plant a little mustard seed of faith.
Sow your faith and reap great rewards. . . .”

The sermon lasts longer than Greuel had expected; his eyelids flutter as he drowses, and in his drowse he pictures the coffee and brunch coming after, the pleasures of food, medicine-sour stomach willing. Since he’s been sentenced to the wheelchair again he no longer cares about dietary concerns or his weight. How’s that for my reward, preacher? Still there is common ground to be found here. He’s guessing this Ponder has an interesting take on that rich man in heaven, camels through the needle’s eye, however that parable went. Common ground. His eyes open again and Greuel leans over to Noe.

“This boy know anything about horses? He should be on his elbows at the rail.”

Noe’s mirth is mechanical, functional, and silent. His yellow teeth bare and remain bared. He still betrays marks of the true morphine fiend himself, though he kicked it near twelve years ago and it’s hard to detect due to the blue pallor of his skin. Greuel hopes dope isn’t the link that brought Arley Noe to the preacher. He dismisses the notion as soon as it arises; Noe has too much of the unfeeling night about him, Greuel doesn’t think he feels hunger for anything but the fun of crime anymore. Now Brother Ponder is speaking of laboring to rest, and to sleep without worry because a person’s faith was enough to pluck them from debt, their little mustard seed was going to score them the house of their dreams one day.

“I like him,” Greuel murmurs, “but I don’t trust the type as a rule. True believers worry. He won’t back out on us?”

“We get the right signature on the right paper and him and his board can worry all they want, they won’t have a say to back out of,” says Arley.

“I’ve noticed you’re a big supporter of the law when it’s on your side.”

“It’s our game; we make the rules. The preacher stays quiet.”

“It’s
your
game when I’m no longer around to play. Do we even have a claim on this land?”

“I am not a believer. By your logic, I am not worried.”

“Of course you’re not. I’m worried. I put up most the money and get to handle all the worry. We make a donation yet?”

Noe nods, taps his knee. Brother Gil is still going at it from the
stage, having broadened his sermon—is that what stands for worship nowadays, boogie jams and a sermon?—from the individual needs of the congregants to the enveloping needs of his ministry; specifically, the need to build their own Galilee and the fundraising required to make such a move possible. Again with mustard seeds. Greuel peers at his watch, scowling.

“Thought you said this’d be over by noon.”

“What the adverts say. Think I been here before?”

Greuel snorts again, and the coat of flab that is his torso quakes at the precision of the absurd image his mind presents. “Not your style.”

“I have no style. It’s a conscious decision.”

Brother Gil stops in the midst of speaking as though he has overheard them, and glances at his own watch. It’s a gleaming timepiece over which Greuel furrows his brow with a curate’s informed inspection—the preacher wears a platinum Bulova encrusted with diamonds. Preaching must pay better than he gave it credit for. He marks a mental note to update his own watch even as he wonders whether later he’ll remember making the note at all. The preacher announces that his sermon needs to stop here.

“We’ll pick this up another time. I could talk all day, most of you know that already, but you have lives to get back to. Come on, let’s bow these heads.”

Quickly he runs through the invocation and benediction. Then the band starts up again and Ponder waves as he makes his way beneath the spotlight to the back of the stage, where he disappears. The applause is shortened by the number of people heading to the exits, the wheelchair sailing forth in the lead, Creed pushing from behind, Noe lagging off on his own. It bothers him how easily Noe can abandon him, but this afternoon Greuel has other things on his mind. He has made a decision, and it requires that he figure where he’s going to find the money to make some things happen now that Fleece Skaggs has disappeared with a season’s worth of reefer.

It’s not like he was raised by wolves but Cole thinks himself half-feral, not exactly raised by anyone, a handful of aphorisms to guide his way.
Do not cause waves. Don’t try to get famous. Never knock how a man makes his living. Never start a fight you can’t finish standing up. Never call a man a liar anywhere but to his face.
The maxims carry the weight of eternal law.
Keep your head to yourself and don’t go around with a greasy eye; there’s always someone slicker than you.
Rules of conduct handed down by Fleece; navigating codes for Pirtle County and Lake Holloway; life advice for the little brother from the elder who warned he wouldn’t be around forever.

Fleece said:
Anyone asks you live on the lake you best investigate why they asking. You may be Prather on paper but you’re still a Skaggs to lots of people here with long memories. Ol’ Bethel didn’t make friends. I haven’t rolled out the red carpet for you here either, come to think of it.

And where are you now, big brother? What carpet have you rolled out for yourself, where did it lead?

Already the rumors have started. Fleece Skaggs burned up his own car to throw off the scent. He’s kicking it easy with Mister Greuel’s
run in the Panhandle somewhere. California. Fleece Skaggs saw his opening and took it, he’s the one who got away.

Or: Mister Greuel had someone disappear that upstart and that is one body, man, nobody will ever find.

His brother used to tease him that just because Cole was half-fool didn’t mean he couldn’t use the little sense he had. But when he was kneeling with Shady and Spunk looking over from the seminary rooftop at the sight of a Chevy Nova burning in the middle of the night he didn’t know what to make of its meaning. He knew only it was his brother’s car and that it meant nothing well.

Cole says he’s from Lake Holloway but he spent only his first twelve years there. In Montreux, the city where he passed through high school as a guest in his uncle’s family, to say
I grew up on the lake
meant nothing; anything outside town is hicksville to the people there. In Pirtle County, though, lakers had earned a reputation nobody born to the fact could speak against. You either wrapped yourself in its dirty flag or moved away.

It was the kind of place people often disappeared from. The manmade lake was originally part of a spa retreat built early in the century for wealthy families, but the spa failed before the Depression. A suspicious fire destroyed the resort hotel in time to help the original investors; then the forest overtook the walks and bungalows over the years, until scavenger types began to sneak in and lay claim, people Cole’s mother Lyda described simply as:
us
. Men with one pair of cracked leather boots and a duffel bag of laundry, who belt-chained their wallets and could never wash the dirt from their fingernails—the kind of men who fell in love with country whores and brought them back to play house, where the mattress on the floor became a kind of factory production line for bodies that would fill military uniforms or carry cargo or sleep in prison beds. They were the kinds of men that punched clocks at three in the afternoon or seven in the morning and already had some scorched distillation in hand as their tires peeled off factory lots headed far from howling babies and angry wives in dry Pirtle. Those woods rang riot after dark, the night rent by yelps of laughter and cries of pain, gunshot cracks celebrating or warning or something worse. A single bad road winds off Route 9 around the
lake and through the hills in total darkness beneath old oaks and conifers, and men roamed from house to hill to hollow looking for something to happen, passing a strummed guitar here to a banjo and fiddle-strangled duet there to a boom box screaming Aerosmith elsewhere, onward to where there might be no music at all, only the low scrapes of boots on planks and the murmur of a bet seen, bet raised, bet called in full.