Carrion Comfort (70 page)

Sutter took off his bifocals. His forehead and upper lip were sheened with sweat. “And what do our children see NOW?! They see pornography and godlessness and filth and garbage and dirt. You go to a movie now . . . a PG movie mind you, I am not even talking about the filthy R-rated and X-rated movies that are everywhere, spreading like cancers, any child can get in, there is no age limit anymore, though that too is hypocrisy . . . filth is filth . . . what is not good for our sixteen-year-olds is not good for grownup, God-fearing citizens . . . but the children go, oh, how they go! And they see PG movies that show them nakedness and profanity . . . one curse word after the other, one profanity after the other . . . and the movies tear down the family,
tear
it down, and tear down the country,
tear
it down, and tear down the Laws of God and laugh at the Word of God and give them sex and violence and filth and excitation. And you say, what can I do? What can
we
do? And I say this: Get close to God, get full of the Word, get so full of Jesus Christ that this garbage, this trash holds no attraction . . . and get your CHILDREN to accept Jesus, accept Jesus into their HEARTS, accept Jesus as their SAVIOR, their PERSONAL Savior, and then the movie filth will have no attraction, this Hollywood version of Gomorrah will have no appeal . . . ‘The Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son . . . the Father hath given him authority to execute judgment . . . the hour is coming . . . all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil . . .
they that have done evil
. . . will rise to hear their doom’ John 5:22–26–28.”

The crowd shouted hallelujahs. “Praise Jesus!” cried the singer. The apocalyptic writer closed his eyes and nodded. The overweight actress sobbed.

“Anthony,” Sutter said in a low voice that drew attention back to him, “you have accepted the Lord?”

“I have, Jimmy. I found the Lord . . .”

“And accepted him as your personal Savior?”

“Yes, Jimmy. I took Jesus Christ into my life . . .”

“And allowed him to lead you out of the forest of fear and fornication . . . out of the false glare of Hollywood’s sickness into the healing light of God’s Word . . .”

“I have, Jimmy. Christ has renewed the joy in my life, given me purpose to continue living and working in His name . . .”

“God’s name be praised,” breathed Sutter and smiled beatifically. He shook his head as if overcome and turned toward camera three. The floor director was rolling his fingers in an urgent circle. “And our good news . . . in the near future, the very near future, I hope . . . Anthony will be bringing his skills and talents and expertise to a
very special
Bible Outreach project . . . we can’t say too much about it now, but be assured that we will be using all of the wonderful skills of Hollywood to bring
God’s Word
to millions of the good Christians who hunger for solid family entertainment.”

The audience and other guests responded with enthusiastic applause. Sutter leaned toward the microphone and spoke over the noise. “Tomorrow, a special Bible Outreach ser vice of Sacred Music . . . our special guests, Pat Boone, Patsy Dillon, the Good News Singers, and our own Gail and the Gospel Guitars . . .”

The applause grew louder as electronic prompters flashed. Camera three came in for an extreme close-up of Sutter. The reverend smiled. “Until next time, remember John 3:16—‘God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, whosoever believeth in Him shall have everlasting life.’ Good-bye! God bless you all!”

Sutter and Harod left the set as soon as the red On-the-Air lights went off, before the applause had ended, and walked quickly through carpeted and air-conditioned corridors. Maria Chen and the Reverend’s wife, Kay, were waiting in Sutter’s outer office. “What do you think, dear?” asked Sutter.

Kay Ellen Sutter was tall and thin, weighted down with layers of makeup and a hairdo that looked as if it had been sculpted and left in place for years. “Wonderful, dear. Excellent.”

“We’ll have to get rid of that blame fool singer’s monologue when he started raving on about Jews in the record business,” said Sutter. “Oh, well, we’ve got to cut about twenty minutes before it’s ready to broadcast anyway.” He put on his bifocals and peered at his wife. “Where you two ladies headed?”

“I thought I would show Maria the day-care and nursery over at married student housing,” said Kay Sutter.

“Great, great!” said the Reverend. “Anthony and I’ve got one more brief meeting and then it’ll be time to get you good folks out to the airstrip for the hop up to Atlanta.”

Maria Chen gave Harod a look. Harod shrugged. The two women left with Kay Ellen Sutter talking at a brisk pace.

The Reverend Jimmy Wayne Sutter’s office was huge, thickly carpeted, and decorated in subtle beiges and earth tones in great contrast to the red, white, and blue decor prevailing elsewhere in the complex. One long wall was a curved window looking out on pastureland and a small patch of woodland preserved by the developers. Behind Sutter’s broad desk, thirty feet of teak wall space was literally covered with signed photographs of the famed and powerful, certificates of merit, ser vice awards, plaques, and other documentation of the status and lasting power of Jimmy Wayne Sutter.

Harod sprawled in a chair and straightened his legs. “Whew!”

Sutter pulled off his suit jacket, draped it over the back of his leather executive’s chair, and sat down, rolling up his sleeves and clasping his hands behind his head. “Well, Anthony, was it the lark you expected it to be?”

Harod ran his hands through his premed hair. “I just hope to hell that none of my backers saw that.”

Sutter smiled. “Why is that, Anthony? Does associating with the godly cause one to lose points in the film community?”

“Looking like an asshole does,” said Harod. He glanced toward a kitchen area at the far end of the room. “Can I get a drink?”

“Certainly,” said Sutter. “Do you mind making it yourself? You know the way.”

Harod had already crossed the room. He filled a glass with Smirnoff’s and ice and pulled another bottle from the concealed cupboard. “Bourbon?”

“Please,” said Sutter. When Harod handed him his drink, the Reverend said, “Are you glad you accepted my little invitation to come visit for a few days, Anthony?”

Harod sipped at his vodka. “Do you think it was smart to tip our hand by having me on the show?”

“They knew you were here,” said Sutter. “Kepler is keeping track of you and both he and Brother C. are watching over me. Maybe your witnessing will serve to confuse them a might.”

“It sure as hell served to confuse me,” Harod said and went to refill his drink.

Sutter chuckled and sorted through papers on his desk. “Anthony, please do not get the idea that I am cynical about my ministry.”

Harod paused in the act of dropping ice chips into his glass and stared at Sutter. “You have to be shitting me,” he said. “This setup is the most cynical rube trap I’ve ever seen.”

“Not at all,” Sutter said softly. “My ministry is real. My care for the people is real. My gratitude for the Ability God has granted me is real.”

Harod shook his head. “Jimmy Wayne, for two days you’ve been showing me around this fundamentalist Disneyland and every goddamn thing I’ve seen is designed to separate some provincial moron’s money from his genuine K-Mart imitation cowhide wallet. You’ve got machines sorting the letters with checks from the empty ones, you’ve got computers scanning the letters and writing their own replies, you’ve got computerized phone banks, direct mail campaigns that’d make Dick Viggerie want to cream his pants, and televised church ser vices that make Mr. Ed reruns look like highbrow programming . . .”

“Anthony, Anthony,” said Sutter and shook his head, “you must look beyond the superficial at the deeper truths. The faithful in my electronic congregation are . . . for the most part . . . simpletons, hicks, and the born again brain dead. But this does not make my ministry a sham, Anthony.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Not at all. I
love
these people!” Sutter pounded the desk with his huge fist. “Fifty years ago when I was a young evangelist . . . seven years old and filled with the Word . . . going from tent revival to tent revival with my daddy and Aunt El, I knew then that Jesus had given me the Ability for a reason . . . and not just to make money.” Sutter picked up a slip of paper and peered at it through his bifocals. “Anthony, tell me who you think wrote this:

Preachers . . . ‘dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversion of the duperies on which they live.’ ”

Sutter looked over the top of his bifocals at Harod. “Tell me who you think wrote that, Anthony.”

Harod shrugged. “H. L. Mencken? Madelyn Murray O’Hare?”

Sutter shook his head. “Jefferson, Anthony.
Thomas
Jefferson.”

“So?”

Sutter pointed a large, blunt finger at Harod. “Don’t you see, Anthony? For all the evangelicals’ talk about this nation being founded on religious principles . . . this being a Christian nation and all . . . most of the Founding Fathers were like Jefferson . . . atheists, pointy-headed intellectuals,
Unitarians
. . .”

“So?”

“So the country was founded by a flock of fuzzy-minded secular
humanists
, Anthony. That’s why we can’t have God in our schools anymore. That’s why they’re killing a million unborn babies a day. That’s why the Communists are growing’ stronger while we’re talking arms reduction. God gave
me
the Ability to stir the hearts and souls of common people so that we can
make
this country a Christian nation, Anthony.”

“And that’s why you want my help in exchange for your support and protection from the Island Club,” said Harod.

“You scratch my back, boy,” said Sutter with a smile, “I’ll keep ’em off’n yours.”

“It sounds like you want to be president someday,” said Harod. “I thought that yesterday we were just talking about rearranging the pecking order in the Island Club a little bit.”

Sutter opened his hands, palms up. “What’s wrong with thinking big, Anthony? Brother C., Kepler, Trask, and Colben’ve all been foolin’ around with politics for decades. I
met
Brother C. forty years ago at a po liti cal rally of conservative preachers at Baton Rouge. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of putting a good Christian in the White House for a change.”

“I thought Jimmy Carter was supposed to have been a good Christian,” said Harod.

“Jimmy Carter was a born-again wimp,” said Sutter. “A real Christian would have known just what to do with the Ayatollah when that pagan put his hands on American citizens. The Bible says . . . ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ We should’ve left those Moslem Shee-ite bastards toothless.”

“To hear NCPAC tell it, it’s the Christians who just put Reagan in,” said Harod. He got up to pour more vodka. Po liti cal discussions always bored him.

“Bull-hockey,” said Jimmy Wayne Sutter. “Brother C., Kepler, and that donkey’s behind Trask, put our friend Ronald where he is. Dolan and the NCPAC nitwits are premature. The country is taking a turn to the right, but there will be temporary reversals. By 1988 or ’92, however, the way will be prepared for a
real
Christian candidate.”

“You?” said Harod. “Aren’t there others in line before you?”

Sutter scowled. “Who, for instance?”

“Whatshisname,” said Harod, “the Moral Majority guy. Falwell.” Sutter laughed. “Jerry was
created
by our right-wing friends in Washington. He’s a golem. When his financing dries up, everybody may notice that he’s a man-shaped heap of mud. And not very smart mud at that.”

“What about some of those older guys,” said Harod, trying to remember the names of the faith healers and snake charmers he had flipped by on L.A. cable. “Rex Hobart . . .”

“
Humbard
,” corrected Sutter, “and Oral Roberts, I suppose. Are you out of your mind, Anthony?”

“What do you mean?”

Sutter extracted a Havana cigar from a humidor and lit it. “We’re talking about people here with cow flop still sticking to their boots,” said the Reverend Jimmy Wayne Sutter. “We’re talking about good old boys who go on TV and say, ‘Put your sick or ailing body part against the television screen, friends, and I will
heal
it!’ Can you image, Anthony, all the hemorrhoids and boils and sores and yeast infections . . . and the man who
blesses
all that biology meeting foreign dignitaries, sleeping in Lincoln’s bedroom?”

“It boggles the mind,” said Harod, starting on his fourth vodka. “What about some of the others. You know, your competitors?”

The Reverend Sutter linked his hands behind his head again and smiled. “Well, there’s Jim and Tammy, but they’re up shit creek half the time with the FCC . . . makes my troubles look pretty piddling’. Besides they take turns having nervous breakdowns. I don’t blame Jim. With a wife like that, I would too. Then there’s Swagger over in Louisiana. He’s a smart ’un, Anthony. But I think he really wants to be a rock ’n’ roll star like his cousin . . .”

“His cousin?” said Harod. “Jerry Lee Lewis,” said Sutter. “So who else is there? Pat Robertson, of course. My guess is that Pat will run in ’84 or ’88. He’s formidable. His network makes my little Outreach project look like a tin can and a bunch of strings going nowhere. But Pat has liabilities. Folks sometimes forget that he’s supposed to be a minister and so does Pat . . .”

“This is all very interesting,” said Harod, “but we’re getting away from the reason I came down here.”

Sutter took off his glasses, removed the cigar from his mouth, and stared. “You came down here, Anthony, because your useless ass is in a sling and unless you get some help on your side, the Club is going to end up using you for one of its after-dinner amusements on the Island . . .”

“Hey,” said Harod, “I’m a full-fledged member of the Steering Committee now.”

“Yes,” said Sutter. “And Trask is dead. Colben is dead. Kepler is lying low, and Brother C. was embarrassed by the fiasco in Philadelphia.”