The Talisman

He thought Sunlight Gardener looked like the Man from Glad.

Wolf turned toward him and whispered hoarsely, “What’s the matter, Jack? You smell like something’s really funny.”

Jack snorted so hard into the hand cupped over his mouth that he blew colorless snot all over his fingers.

Sunlight Gardener, his face glowing with ruddy good health, turned the pages of the great Bible on the lectern, apparently lost in deepest meditation. Jack saw the glowering scorched-earth landscape of Heck Bast’s face, the narrow, suspicious face of Sonny Singer. He sobered up in a hurry.

In the glass booth, Casey was sitting up, watching Gardener alertly. And as Gardener raised his handsome face from his Bible and fastened his cloudy, dreaming, and utterly insane eyes upon his congregation, Casey flipped a switch. The reels of the big tape recorder began to turn.

6

“Fret not thyself because of evildoers,”

said Sunlight Gardener. His voice was low, musical, thoughtful.

“Neither be thou envious against

the workers of iniquity.

For they shall soon be cut down like the grass,

and wither as the green herb.

Trust in the Lord, and do good;

so shalt thou dwell in the Territories—”

(Jack Sawyer felt his heart take a nasty, leaping turn in his chest)

“—and verily thou shalt be fed.

Delight thyself also in the Lord;

and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

Commit thy way unto the Lord;

trust also in him;

and he shall bring it to pass. . . .

Cease from anger, and forsake wrath;

fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.

For evildoers shall be cut off:

but those that wait upon the Lord,

they shall inherit his Territory.”

Sunlight Gardener closed the Book.

“May God,” he said, “add His Blessing to the reading of His Holy Word.”

He looked down at his hands for a long, long time. In Casey’s glass booth, the wheels of the tape recorder turned. Then he looked up again, and in his mind Jack suddenly heard this man scream: Not the Kingsland? You don’t mean to tell me you’ve overturned a full wagonload of Kingsland Ale, you stupid goat’s penis? You don’t mean to tell me that, do yoooooouuuuuuu?

Sunlight Gardener studied his young male congregation closely and earnestly. Their faces looked back at him— round faces, lean faces, bruised faces, faces flaring with acne, faces that were sly, and faces that were open and youthful and lovely.

“What does it mean, boys? Do you understand Psalm Thirty-seven? Do you understand this lovely, lovely song?”

No, their faces said—sly and open, clear and sweet, pitted and poxed. Not too much, only got as far as the fifth grade, been on the road, been on the bum, been in trouble . . . tell me . . . tell me. . . .

Suddenly, shockingly, Gardener shrieked into the mike, “It means DON’T SWEAT IT! ”

Wolf recoiled, moaning a little.

“Now you know what that means, don’t you? You boys have heard that one, haven’t you?”

“Yeah!” someone shouted from behind Jack.

“OH-YEAH!” Sunlight Gardener echoed, beaming. “DON’T SWEAT IT! NEGATIVE PERSPIRATION! They are good words, aren’t they, boys? Those are some kind of gooooood words, OH-YEAH!”

“Yeah! . . . YEAH!”

“This Psalm says you don’t have to WORRY about the evildoers! NO SWEAT! OH-YEAH! It says you don’t have to WORRY about the workers of sin and iniquity! NEGATIVE PERSPIRATION! This Psalm here says that if you WALK the Lord and TALK the Lord, EVERYTHING’S GONNA BE SO COOL! Do you understand that, boys? Do you have an understanding ear for that?”

“Yeah!”

“Hallelujah!” Heck Bast cried, grinning divinely.

“Amen!” a boy with a great lazy eye behind his magnifying spectacles returned.

Sunlight Gardener took the mike with practiced ease, and Jack was again reminded of a Las Vegas lounge performer. Gardener began to walk back and forth with nervous, mincing rapidity. He sometimes did a jigging little