Hunting Season (11 page)

I fan my face with the program. "Like being in a barn full of excited cattle."

"What was that, Matthew?"

"Nothing."

The lights dim and Gospel music blasts over the theater's sound system. I shake my head and wipe beading sweat from my brow. Showtime.

Then Reverend Simms sprints out from behind a make-shift curtain. The crowd erupts in shouts and applause. Laura claps weakly, a giant smile planted on her face. The sight stabs at my chest, forcing me to turn back to the reverend.

Simms pumps his fists in celebration of what I have no idea. The reverend has slicked-back hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and nicely tanned skinned. He wears slacks, a sport jacket, and a turtleneck. I feel the sleaze radiating from him. I refuse to clap but the rest of the crowd eats up what Simms is serving.

"Are you ready for
God
?" Simms yells into a gold-plated microphone.

I feel the blood flushing my face. I have to sit through this? I cover my mouth to keep from laughing.

"Yes!" Laura screams with the rest of the crowd.

"Well, here he comes." Simms walks around, giving high fives to those in the front row.

For twenty minutes, Simms preaches and screams "Amen!" and the crowd's excitement shoots to the moon. He says something about Jesus and God and then asks for another "Amen!". He talks about God taking care of his flock and punishing the wicked. Then he chatters on about how
he
is an instrument of the Almighty. How
he
will prove God's mercy by healing the afflicted.

The crowd is a hungry mob now, ready to eat from Simms' table of miracles. Many sing with the Gospel music in the background. Others clap and yell "Amen!" or "Preach it, Brother!" or "Praise the Lord!" And the whole time, Simms gyrates and skips and spits out a verse of scripture or two. I sweat like a white guy in South Central L.A. and force myself to grin and bear it.

Then it's time for the healings. Simms invites the needy down. A line of those looking for a miracle forms. At the front stands a guy on crutches.

"Do you believe in Jesus?" Simms says.

"I do." Crutches' voice is shaky, like he's not sure he does.

"Do you believe in me?"

Is that a trick question?
Again, I stifle a laugh.

"I do."

Simms places his hands on the guy's forehead and yells, "Be healed!"

Everyone stares as the guy drops his crutches and takes a few clumsy steps.

"How are you, Brother?" Simms says.

"I'm healed," the guy says. The crowd responds with a thunderous chorus of screams and applause.

Probably on the reverend's payroll, I think. Just too convenient. And who buys a guy on crutches? That was a joke even when they faked this shit in the Depression era road shows.

Laura buys it hook, line, and sinker, though. She rises and pushes her way into the queue. I sigh and go to her side. If she insists on feeling the reverend's touch, I will be there with her.

About a dozen people stand in front of Laura. The wait passes quickly, though. Simms' line of healing moves like a well-oiled machine.

I notice the reverend slips his right hand into his jacket pocket very briefly with some people but not with others. He didn't do it for the guy on crutches but does for a guy with a bum shoulder. Nothing ever comes out with it that I can see. Probably a nervous habit, I think. What else could it be, right?

A woman a few people in front of Laura claims to have horrible stomachaches. Simms' hand goes in the pocket and quickly comes out. He touches her, yells, "Be healed!" and hurries her out of the way.

The line moves fast. Simms has his act down. Before I know it, it's Laura's turn.

"What seems to be troubling you, young lady?" he says.

"I have cancer." Laura's voice breaks. I can barely watch her succumb to this guy's bag of lies.

Simms is silent for a moment, studying Laura. Then he looks around at the audience, all hanging on his every word. He nods, as if they're feeding him the answer to a question telepathically.

"That is not cancer, you have," Simms says, his voice soft. "That is a demon of Hell."

"I don't think-"

"Nothing has worked, correct? None of the treatments have even weakened it, right? All they've done is weaken you while it grows stronger."

Laura has tears in her eyes. "Yes."

"Young lady," Simms puts his arm around her shoulders, "That is a demon in you! That is a demon who doesn't want you to heal. Its purpose is to kill you. To destroy your faith. To ravage your soul and make you question God's will." Simms fixes me with his eyes. "To make your loved ones renounce the Way and the Light." Simms returns to Laura. "But not anymore. We're going to whip that demon and restore the Holy Spirit within you!"

It takes all of my will not to fly into a violent rage. My hands ball into fists and shake at my sides. I want to knock the shithead's teeth out the back of his skull but suck the urge down with the rest of my growing anger.

"Can you help me?" Laura's desperation rides her words. The tears soak her eyes and cheeks.

Simms smiles the most insincere smile I've ever seen. "Of course." His right hand comes out of his pocket and he places it on Laura's forehead. "Incanto dim momanto yea luria. Devil, I cast thee out in the name of God!"

A few moments of utter silence pass.

He removes his hand from Laura's forehead. "How do you feel?"

Laura's eyes look around for a moment.

"I don't feel any pain."

Simms smiles and the crowd manages to erupt in a round of deafening cheers. I ignore it and help her out of the way.

"You don't feel any pain?" I say as we head back to our seats.

"I know you don't believe it, Matthew. But I think it worked."

"You know-"

"He touched me and the pain went away." Laura giggles. She actually giggles and the sound stuns me. "I think God has blessed me tonight."

My vision blurs from tears of my own. Not tears of joy like Laura sheds but of despair. My poor sister has deluded herself into believing a miracle from God has graced her.

I should have never let her come here, I think.

*  *  *  *  *

"You don't really believe him, do you?" I say in the car on the way home. I can't let it go. Even though she's happy, I don't want her to swallow the lie which has been spoon fed to her.

"I'm telling you what I felt," Laura says. I can sense her agitation radiating off her like heat off asphalt on a summer day. "He touched my head and the pain was gone. I have felt pain every day for almost a year. But now I don't. You explain that."

"Power of suggestion." I flip on the windshield wipers as the rain kicks up. "Ever heard of that?"

"How about the power of God? Ever heard of that?"

I smirk. Laura always could come-back with the best of them. "You really believe Reverend Simms is a medium for God's healing power?"

"I know he looks weird with his hair and his tan. But God chooses unusual vessels for His power. Who are we to question His will?"

My grip on the steering wheel tightens. I look over at Laura and see her grinning in the light of oncoming traffic. I let it go. How do you win against someone who's already declared victory? And in Laura's case, why try? She's happy.

"Okay, Sis. If you say so."

Laura pats me on the shoulder. "God has a way."

*  *  *  *  *

The next morning, I notice the mark. Laura stands in the kitchen making eggs when I see a red mark on her forehead. It sticks out like a crimson blotch on an albino.

"What happened to your head?"

Laura smiles. "Isn't it wonderful?"

I shrug. "What's wonderful? The mark?"

Laura nods. "It's where the reverend touched me."

I look at it closer and realize what she means. It's not just one but three distinct red marks. Fingers crossed her forehead on a diagonal. Simms placed his hand on her head in the exact same place last night.

"That son of a bitch," I say.

"What?"

"Simms slipped you something."

"What do you mean by that?"

"He kept sliding his right hand into his pocket before putting his hand on foreheads. Not all the time, mind you. Just with some. I thought it was a nervous habit but this explains it. He was rubbing something on his hands."

Laura shook her head. "I don't think so, Matthew."

"Come on, Laura. He touched you and you stopped feeling pain. Today your forehead is irritated exactly where his hand came in contact with your forehead. Are you still feeling good?"

"Yes."

"Because he drugged you. He rubbed a painkiller or something on your forehead. That's why you feel better. You're doped."

Laura starts crying, her lower lip quivering. "No, Matthew. It's not that."

I wipe a tear away from her eye. "Okay, then what is it?"

"God. This is where God touched me. God touched me through the reverend."

I open my mouth to argue but stop. Laura doesn't need her faith thrown in her face any further. Instead, I nod.

"You're right."

She smiles, tears filling the creases around her mouth. "Thank you, Matthew."

NOW

"Two days of happiness followed," I say to Simms' unconscious body. Drool drips from his open mouth. I don't know why I'm talking but it feels good to throw it in his face, even if he isn't listening. "Laura moved around the house like she hadn't in a year. She cleaned and cooked and I even caught her chasing the cat. I knew her miracle was false. I knew you were a lying sack of shit. But at the same time, I found myself sharing in her joy."

Why do I keep talking to him? To pass time, I guess. I sit back, thinking about those last two days. Laura was happy. Even vibrant. She even tried to do some farm work but I set my foot down firmly against it. The death of our parents left us the house and family farm and the responsibility for keeping them up. I couldn't do both on my own but I wouldn't let Laura do anything more than housework, no matter how great she felt.

"After the two days of imaginary miracle, I found Laura in her bed. She had died sometime in the night."

Relief flooded me at first when I found her but I won't tell Simms that. At last my sister had found peace. But my feelings soon turned to anger. I never believed Laura had actually been cured of cancer, demon-possession, or anything else. But those two days contained hope. Hope provided by Simms.

Staring at him now, I want to cut him open from his neck to his dick. I feel the same way I felt when I found Laura dead, the end product of the man across from me. I wanted to kill him then and I want to taste his blood now.

Simms: liar and fraud and killer.

"Laura believed in you but she still died. A piece of me had hoped, maybe even prayed you had succeeded. That you were the real deal. But it was all part of the scam, wasn't it you piece of shit? Just another one of your cons."

THEN

Standing in the county medical examiner's office a couple of days after her death, I receive the autopsy report. I try to read it but none of it makes sense, like I'm reading Greek. The M.E. picks up on it and clears his throat.

"In layman's terms, the cancer didn't kill your sister," the doctor says.

"What?"

"Did your sister have a taste for exotic fish? Maybe New Age healing techniques?"

"Fish? No. Unless you count catfish as exotic. And she was a firm Christian. No time wasted on New Age shit. What does either have to do with anything?"

"This is going to sound weird but we found tetrodotoxin in her blood stream. It's a substance found in Fugu. Very rare and exotic. And expensive"

"I'm not following, Doc."

"Fugu is the Puffer fish. You've seen those, right?"

"Yeah. The ones that inflate like a balloon. Have spikes all over them."

"Well, your sister had a toxin from that fish in her bloodstream. Very poisonous. A small amount can cause paralysis and usually death. The amount she had was small but because of the condition of her nervous system, it killed her. In a normal person it would have just numbed the body, like a potent pain killer, but in her it was too much."

"Her system couldn't handle it."

"That's correct."

I clench my fists. The cancer almost destroyed Laura but Simms killed her.

"Do you have any idea how your sister came in contact with this?"

I look at him for a moment, heat rising in my neck so fast I can feel it like mercury in a thermometer.

"No," I say and sign where I'm supposed to. "But who knows, right? Like you said, weird."

*  *  *  *  *

I could have gone home and accepted Laura died happy, no matter what it was which finally did her end.

Could have.

Instead, I stand in the back of the theater. Another mass of humanity packs the seats. My eyes move over individuals in the crowd and contempt for their ignorance grows in my guts. Are they that blind? Or will they swallow anything if it gives them the reality they wish? Not me, though. Fuck Simms.

The music starts and Simms runs out to the excited crowd. He jumps right into it his same shtick. The consummate actor doing his five hundredth show on Broadway.

"Are you ready for
God
?" he yells into the gold-plated microphone and the crowd roars.

I can't take another second of it.

"You're a killer!" I yell over the applause.

The audience doesn't hear me at first, drowned out by the sound of flesh smacking flesh. But I yell it again and this time they hear. This time they go silent and turn their heads, almost in prefect damn unison, and lock on me.

Simms' eyes dart up and radar lock on me.

"I'm afraid I don't understand, young man." Simms sets his jaw and climbs the stairs of the theater toward me.

"You said you healed my sister but now she's dead. They found a toxin in her. Interestingly enough, it's supposed to make you numb. But it killed her instead. You see, the cancer had made her too weak for the dose you hit her with. So explain that, Holy Man."