“It ain’t no worsen havinum that would put a knife in your back when you wasn’t looking,” the older man said, barely parting his lips.
“Friend, you said a mouthful when you said that,” the man said. “If we had time, I would have you repeat that just so ever’body could hear it like I did.” The picture show was over and more people were coming up. “Friends,” the man said, “I know you’re all interested in the Prophet here,” pointing to Haze on the nose of the car, “and if you’ll just give me time I’m going to tell you what him and his idears’ve done for me. Don’t crowd because I’m willing to stay here all night and tell you if it takes that long.”
Haze stood where he was, motionless, with his head slightly forward, as if he weren’t sure what he was hearing.
“Friends,” the man said, “lemme innerduce myself. My name is Onnie Jay Holy and I’m telling it to you so you can check up and see I don’t tell you any lie. I’m a preacher and I don’t mind who knows it but I wouldn’t have you believe nothing you can’t feel in your own hearts. You people coming up on the edge push right on up in here where you can hear good,” he said. “I’m not selling a thing, I’m giving something away!” A considerable number of people had stopped.
“Friends,” he said, “two months ago you wouldn’t know me for the same man. I didn’t have a friend in the world. Do you know what it’s like not to have a friend in the world?”
A loud voice said, “It ain’t no worsen havinum that would put…”
“Why, friends,” Onnie Jay Holy said, “not to have a friend in the world is just about the most miserable and lonesome thing that can happen to a man or woman! And that’s the way it was with me. I was ready to hang myself or to despair completely. Not even my own dear old mother loved me, and it wasn’t because I wasn’t sweet inside, it was because I never known how to make the natural sweetness inside me show. Every person that comes onto this earth,” he said, stretching out his arms, “is born sweet and full of love. A little child loves ever’body, friends, and its nature is sweetness—until something happens. Something happens, friends, I don’t need to tell people like you that can think for theirselves. As that little child gets bigger, its sweetness don’t show so much, cares and troubles come to perplext it, and all its sweetness is driven inside it. Then it gets miserable and lonesome and sick, friends. It says, ‘Where is all my sweetness gone? where are all the friends that loved me?’ and all the time, that little beat-up rose of its sweetness is inside, not a petal dropped, and on the outside is just a mean lonesomeness. It may want to take its own life or yours or mine, or to despair completely, friends.” He said it in a sad nasal voice but he was smiling all the time so that they could tell he had been through what he was talking about and come out on top. “That was the way it was with me, friends. I know what of I speak,” he said, and folded his hands in front of him. “But all the time that I was ready to hang myself or to despair completely, I was sweet inside, like ever’body else, and I only needed something to bring it out. I only needed a little help, friends.
“Then I met this Prophet here,” he said, pointing at Haze on the nose of the car. “That was two months ago, folks, that I heard how he was out to help me, how he was preaching the Church of Christ Without Christ, the church that was going to get a new jesus to help me bring my sweet nature into the open where ever’body could enjoy it. That was two months ago, friends, and now you wouldn’t know me for the same man. I love ever’one of you people and I want you to listen to him and me and join our church, the Holy Church of Christ Without Christ, the new church with the new jesus, and then you’ll all be helped like met”
Haze leaned forward. “This man is not true,” he said. “I never saw him before tonight. I wasn’t preaching this church two months ago and the name of it ain’t the Holy Church of Christ Without Christi”
The man ignored this and so did the people. There were ten or twelve gathered around. “Friends,” Onnie Jay Holy said, “I’m mighty glad you’re seeing me now instead of two months ago because then I couldn’t have testified to this new church and this Prophet here. If I had my gittarr with me I could say all this better but I’ll just have to do the best I can by myself.” He had a winning smile and it was evident that he didn’t think he was any better than anybody else even though he was.
“Now I just want to give you folks a few reasons why you can trust this church,” he said. “In the first place, friends, you can rely on it that it’s nothing foreign connected with it. You don’t have to believe nothing you don’t understand and approve of. If you don’t understand it, it ain’t true, and that’s all there is to it. No jokers in the deck, friends.”
Haze leaned forward. “Blasphemy is the way to the truth,” he said, “and there’s no other way whether you understand it or not!”
“Now, friends,” Onnie Jay said, “I want to tell you a second reason why you can absolutely trust this churches it’s based on the Bible. Yes sir! It’s based on your own personal interpitation of the Bible, friends. You can sit at home and interpit your own Bible however you feel in your heart it ought to be interpited. That’s right,” he said, “just the way Jesus would have done it. Gee, I wisht I had my gittarr here,” he complained.
“This man is a liar,” Haze said. “I never saw him before tonight. I never…”
“That ought to be enough reasons, friends,” Onnie Jay Holy said, “but I’m going to tell you one more, just to show I can. This church is up-to-date! When you’re in this church you can know that there’s nothing or nobody ahead of you, nobody knows nothing you don’t know, all the cards are on the table, friends, and that’s a fack!”
Haze’s face under the white hat began to take on a look of fierceness. Just as he was about to open his mouth again, Onnie Jay Holy pointed in astonishment to the baby in the blue bonnet who was sprawled limp over the woman’s shoulder. “Why yonder is a little babe,” he said, “a little bundle of helpless sweetness. Why, I know you people aren’t going to let that little thing grow up and have all his sweetness pushed inside him when it could be on the outside to win friends and make him loved. That’s why I want ever* one of you people to join the Holy Church of Christ Without Christ. It’ll cost you each a dollar but what is a dollar? A few dimes! Not too much to pay to unlock that little rose of sweetness inside you!”
“Listen!” Haze shouted. “It don’t cost you any money to know the truth! You can’t know it for money!**
“You hear what the Prophet says, friends/’ Onnie Jay Holy said, “a dollar is not too much to pay. No amount of money is too much to learn the truth! Now I want each of you people that are going to take advantage of this church to sign on this little pad I have in my pocket here and give me your dollar personally and let me shake your hand!”
Haze slid down from the nose of his car and got in it and slammed his foot on the starter.
“Hey wait! Wait!” Onnie Jay Holy shouted, “I ain’t got any of these friends’ names yet!”
The Essex had a tendency to develop a tic by nightfall. It would go forward about six inches and then back about four; it did that now a succession of times rapidly; otherwise Haze would have shot off in it and been gone. He had to grip the steering wheel with both hands to keep from being thrown either out the windshield or into the back. It stopped this after a few seconds and slid about twenty feet and then began it again.
