Mug ran his hand through his unruly, greasy mop of hair. “The rev’s nailing him for being a racist, for being a card-carrying member of the NRA, for being anticivil rights, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I think he was just makin’ shit up this afternoon, just to get more reaction. He gets a good reaction when he threatens right wingers. Even a better reaction if something happens to them.”
Mug laughed, almost like a rumble deep in his throat. “Make stuff up? The rev?”
“And?”
Crayer looked around at the five of us. “And? If the rev gets three or four thousand people riled up, they take Romans on. Tear him down.”
James was engrossed. “Is that what you mean about ‘something happening to them?’ You mean he influences that many people?”
“Kid,” Stan was puffing like a locomotive, “he’ll influence maybe ten thousand people just this weekend.”
“Wow.”
“You remember what happened to that talk show host, Don Imus? He made some comment about some black college girls, and got fired inside of a week, from TV and radio.” Stan took another puff on his cigar and a spiral of smoke climbed high and disappeared in the dark. “Reverend Al Sharpton took him on. Crucified him. Kid, ministers and public opinion are powerful forces. They can bring down mountains.”
Everything got quiet, and I was aware of the warm, humid night air. The cloying odor of old grease, stale beer, cigar smoke, and sweat was getting to my stomach and I realized, with all the food we’d cooked, I hadn’t eaten anything.
I lost three hands, folded quickly, and was down about forty bucks. James had won his first hand, raking in over $300. And then, in typical James fashion, he promptly lost the next two hands and ended up down $200. I’d locked our newfound money in a small closet in the truck, so thank goodness he had limited funds. Knowing James, he could have blown the entire night’s take.
“More beer?” Crayer pulled a couple of long necks from the aluminum cooler by the side of Stan’s trailer. We’d already swallowed three, and I pushed myself away from the table.
“I’m going to have to decline. I’ve got work tomorrow, and then this again tomorrow night.”
“Skip, couple more hands here. I can win this back and we can really go home with a stash.” James gave me a pleading look.
I grabbed him by the shoulder, and he shook my hand off. “Come on, amigo. One more hand.” He twisted the cap off his beer and played another hand. Now he was down $500. It was obvious they could smell blood. Stan, Bruce, Dusty, Mug all pleaded with him to stay in the game.
James looked down at his dwindling stake, shoved the few paltry dollars back in his pocket and sadly shook his head. “Got to take Skip home, guys.”
Stan pointed up the lane. “Girls comin’ in half an hour.”
James and I both perked up a little. “Girls?”
“Thought maybe Bruce told you. Where there’s loose money, they’ll find it.”
I glanced at my partner, his big smile dwindling. “Working girls?”
The guy with the big face and shaved head named Mug, laughed out loud. “They’ll be workin’ their asses off once they get here. We set ’em up in a small tent over by the Intracoastal Waterway.” He pointed off to the right, behind a stand of trees, where the state had built a series of shelters that looked out on the man-made waterway. Working girls. Another fine use of the Florida taxpayer’s dollar. A tented whorehouse.
“Uh, I think we’ll pass.”
“Tomorrow night,” Stan the pizza guy jammed his finger into my chest, “you stay late. There’s a special little treat goin’ on and I think you young guys would enjoy it. Stay late, got it?”
We said our good-byes and Crayer said goodnight as well. The three of us worked our way up the end of the dirt road.
“I’m stayin’ in a little trailer just over there.” Crayer pointed to a spot in the distance where a scattering of dim lights shone from tents and trailers. “Most of the guys you met stay there.”
“What about the other vendors?”
“Most of the others are like you. They’re local and they go home in the evening. Got families and stuff. We’re on the road. If the rev’s got a gig, we do that, but we spread out and do shows all over the country. Fairs, carnivals, sometime even other revival meetings with other guys.”
“Well, we’re driving the truck back to our apartment. We’ll see you tomorrow night. Thanks for showing us the ropes.” I shook his hand.
“Hell, you guys were goin’ like gangbusters tonight. You got the hang of it right away.”
James nodded. “Tell me something, Bruce. When Cashdollar brings all this force to bear on somebody like Barry Romans, you’re telling me he can get him fired? That’s pretty serious power. What’s happened in the past?”
James was obsessed with it. Power, money, making something happen with his young life. He wouldn’t pass up any chance for a learning experiece. My best friend, the entrepreneur.
“I’ve been doin’ this little circus for a lot of years. Three years with the rev, but lots of years on different circuits.” Crayer ran his hand through his thinning hair. “I’ve made enough donuts to circle this world a hundred times, so I’ve got a little background.”
“And?”
“The rev started out like a lot of them, with fire and brimstone. God’s gonna getcha’ if you don’t straighten up.”
I remembered the revival meeting Buzz and I had gone to many years ago. Somewhere, I remembered, not too far from here. I had no recollection of who the preacher was. I just remember he marched around his platform with a Bible clutched in his hand and he was angry. Angry at the Devil and just about everyone else.
“And I believe that he changed people’s lives. I do. But it’s a different world out there.”
“How’s that?” James was leaning in, eagerly hoping for some business advice he could use.
“People want to blame somebody else for all the problems of the world, and the rev honed in on that. First of all, he got into the ‘God’s gonna make you rich’ thing. He got people dreaming. That’s doing really well for him. Collections doubled, tripled. But he really saw his fortunes start to climb about three years ago when he nailed that senator from Nebraska, Long I think his name was.”
I drew a blank.
“Guy was antigay, anticivil rights, and he made a couple of statements that struck the rev the wrong way. Very right wing. May have even used the N word. Rev went after him and Cashdollar was getting national press — cover of Time magazine — and the money was rolling in.”
“And what?” I asked. “They ran this Long out of office?”
“Not exactly. The rev got the national media behind it, got the newspapers and television networks to go after this guy. Rev was on Larry King and a lot of left-wing talk shows. He started a letter-writing campaign, phone banks, blogs on the Internet, and stuff you couldn’t imagine.”
“He’s that powerful?”
“More powerful than even that.”
“How much more powerful can you be?” Now I was intrigued.
Crayer folded his hands over his ample stomach and in the dim light gave us a hard look. “I was there when Fred Long got killed.”
All of a sudden he’d remembered the senator’s name.
“Somebody shot him in cold blood on the streets of Washington D.C. And boys,” he stopped for a moment, looking off into space, “boys, you don’t get any more powerful than that.”
CHAPTER FIVE
J ames drove, and when he’d occasionally hit the brakes we could hear the kitchen equipment rattle in the back.
