Pentecost-I have to admit I didn’t know this-was the seventh Sunday after Jesus’s resurrection, when he appeared before his disciples. They were so filled with the Holy Spirit they began to speak in tongues, the Bible says. So that’s what Pentecostals still do today: They fill themselves with the spirit and say things no one but God understands.
Some Pentecostals believe different people are given different gifts-so if you don’t speak in tongues, that’s okay, you can still get into heaven. Others are not so forgiving: If you don’t have the gift of tongues you aren’t really saved. Buddy Wing apparently fell into that second group. So when Tim Bandicoot came back from Bible college, his head brimming with theological flexibility, and started suggesting that the Heaven Bound Cathedral might do better in the here-and-now, television viewer-wise, if Buddy toned down a few of his more controversial practices, like healing people through the television screen, like handling rattlesnakes every year on his birthday, or like speaking in tongues, well, you can only imagine what Buddy thought.
Tim had grown up in the church. His parents were original members of the Clean Collar Club. He was the son Buddy never had. I’m sure Buddy tried everything he could to correct Tim’s errant thinking. At some point he must have realized it wasn’t going to happen and he brought in Guthrie Gates and began grooming him.
Why didn’t Buddy just send Tim on his merry way, to start his own church, to spread the good word in his own way? Maybe he had tried to do that. Maybe Tim wouldn’t leave gracefully. Maybe Tim had the power of his convictions and was determined to stay and fight. Maybe Tim, religiously speaking, knew a cash cow when he saw one and wasn’t about to walk away. Maybe Guthrie’s sudden appearance as a rival only stiffened Tim’s resolve. Who knows what kind of psychological stuff was going on inside, and among, Tim Bandicoot, Guthrie Gates and the Rev. Buddy Wing?
All we know is that things slowly came to a head, and one night, with the television cameras grinding away, Buddy Wing cast Tim Bandicoot from his flock.
The fancy Greek word for speaking in tongues, by the way, is glossolalia: glossai means tongue, lalein means to babble. But what believers speak is not Greek. It is a heavenly language, perhaps the language spoken by the angels, or God himself. When humans speak it, they have no idea what they are saying. When humans hear it, they have no idea what they’re hearing. They are simply in the spirit.
“ Shalbala-she-shalbala,” Buddy cried out from his pulpit the night he cast out Tim Bandicoot. “The gift of tongues has come over me. All who might be offended better listen elsewhere. She-shalbala-shebendula- shebendula. Out of this holy place you who reject the gift, you who pretend to be saved.” His finger surveyed the congregation, the choir and the dancers and the orchestra, and like the jittery needle on a compass found Tim Bandicoot seated alongside Guthrie Gates in the row of huge gold chairs behind his pulpit.
Can you imagine the humiliation felt by the two hundred who retreated toward the exit signs that night? Can you imagine the self-righteousness felt by the thousand who applauded them out?
Tim Bandicoot and Guthrie Gates left as they’d come-together. Except this time the Herald-Union’ s own version of Ronny Doddridge, day shift security guard Al Tosi, who stood five-six and weighed four pounds for every one of his sixty-two years, was waddling behind them. Both Tim and Guthrie were crying.
Tim had apologized profusely after the shoving match. Guthrie had only sniffled indignantly, “I suppose you’re going to print this, too?”
Which was a good question. Was their meeting in Bob Averill’s office off the record? Or was it fair fodder for Aubrey’s series-to help give context to the rift between the tongue-speaking followers of the Rev. Guthrie Gates and the non-glossolalianites in the Rev. Tim Bandicoot’s New Epiphany Temple?
Chapter 17
Wednesday, June 28
As soon as I got to my desk Aubrey motioned for me to come to hers. I hurried across the newsroom, tea bag still soaking in my mug. “Can’t you wait until a woman’s awake?” I complained.
She wanted me to hear the message on her phone. She handed me the receiver and punched the replay button. The voice was precise and sweet in the phoniest way:
Aubrey…this is Annie Bandicoot. Something really important is going to happen Sunday at Tim’s church. And I thought you might want to be there. Services start at ten…bye-bye.
Aubrey put her hands behind her head and swiveled back and forth in her chair. With her elbows sticking out like that she looked like an angel ornament swinging from a Christmas tree. Her smile was absolutely Satanic. “What do you make of that?” she asked me.
“Assuming it was really Annie Bandicoot?”
“Yeah. Assuming that.”
“Then I’d say something important is going to happen. Something they want reported.”
“They? Or just Annie? Remember what she said: ‘I thought you might want to be there.’ I thought, not we thought.”
Dangling tea bag or no, I took a sip from my mug. “It’s probably innocent enough. But it does make you wonder why Annie made the call and not Tim, doesn’t it?”
“So many possibilities, Maddy: Tim is so distraught after his little shoving match with Guthrie Gates that wifey-poo has to do his dirty work. Or wifey-poo, tired of seeing her man muck things up, takes matters in her own hands. Or maybe the Bandicoots are in cahoots, going on the offensive together to cover their guilt.”
“Bandicoots in cahoots,” I said. “I like that.”
She ignored me. “Maybe that wasn’t Annie Bandicoot on the phone at all. Maybe that was someone from Guthrie’s church, wanting me to show up at Tim’s church, so Tim would see me and go off on me and look like a complete jerk, which I would dutifully include in my series.”
I had a possibility of my own: “Maybe somebody’s going to spike Tim’s water pitcher.”
Aubrey turned her wings back into arms and silently applauded my deductive powers. “Whatever’s going to happen, you and I, Dolly Madison Sprowls, are going to church Sunday.”
Friday, June 30
Eric finally came out of his funk and completed the computer search on Edward Tolchak, the neighbor who kept shooting out the Heaven Bound Cathedral’s parking lot lights. Unfortunately, as Aubrey already had surmised, the search came up with nothing useful. After getting out of jail for the third time, Tolchak had filed a civil suit against the Heaven Bound Cathedral. The cathedral settled out of court, removing two of the light poles, installing Venetian blinds on Tolchak’s windows, planting a row of blue spruce along his property line and paying him $25,000 for the mental anguish he’d suffered. I gave the findings to Aubrey.
Sunday, July 2
Sunday morning Aubrey and I drove to Lutheran Hill. So did the man in the red Taurus station wagon. We spotted him behind us shortly after Aubrey picked me up. “Do you think Annie Bandicoot left a message on his phone, too?” Aubrey asked. She was neither angry nor afraid. Not even anxious. She was enjoying all this.
When we reached the New Epiphany Temple and pulled into the gravel parking lot, the man in the station wagon made a quick turn onto a side street and parked. He was protecting his license plate number like it was the secret formula for Coca-Cola.
The old Woolworth’s store was filled to the gills. We found a pair of empty chairs near the back. Aubrey nudged me and pointed at the huge cross behind the pulpit. It was twinkling.
A quintet of musicians took their positions in the corner and started playing-two guitars, trumpet, drums and
