Brimstone

{ 73 }

Bryce Harriman sat at the old table, taking notes in the harsh light of a Coleman lantern, the Reverend Buck across from him. It was almost midnight, but he wasn't the least bit sleepy. The day before, he had filed a crackerjack story, about the failed attempt to arrest Buck. He had pieced it together from a half dozen witnesses, and it was juicy: the swaggering police captain coming in to arrest Buck, how he'd panicked and run, leaving it to the other captain-a woman-to straighten things out. Great copy. In the long run, it might turn out to be more than just great copy: he'd begun putting out feelers at the Times , and they seemed receptive to a job interview. This new article would be gravy. And thanks to Buck, he was now the only journalist allowed in the tent city. With this second piece appearing hot on the heels of the first, he was going to score a double whammy. And he would be there tomorrow, too, just in case there was a showdown with New York's finest.

Judging from the mood in the camp, it was going to be a mess. Since the botched arrest, the whole place had been on edge, restless, belligerent, like a powder keg ready to go. Even at midnight, more than a day after the would-be raid, everyone was still awake, the prayers and camp meetings sounding shrilly through the darkness. A lot of the kids he'd noticed on his first visit to the tent city were gone-a night or two of sleeping on the hard ground, without an Internet connection or cable TV, had sent them scurrying home to their comfy suburbs. What remained was the hard-core element, the real zealots. And there was no shortage of those: there had to be at least three hundred tents here.

Buck himself was different. Gone was the flicker of uncertainty, the faint aura of surprise and wonder that he had possessed before. Now he seemed almost transcendentally calm and assured. When he looked at Harriman, it was as if he was looking right through him to another world.

"Well, Mr. Harriman," he was saying, "have you gotten what you came for? It's almost midnight, and I usually deliver a message to the people before retiring."

"Just one other question. What do you think's going to happen? The NYPD aren't just going to walk away, you realize."

He had half expected the question to shake Buck up a bit, but instead, the man seemed to settle even deeper into something like serenity. "What will happen will happen."

"It may not be pretty. Are you ready?"

"No, it won't be pretty, and yes, I am ready."

"You say that almost as if you know what's going to happen."

Buck smiled knowingly but said nothing.

"Aren't you concerned?" Harriman asked more insistently.

Again that enigmatic smile. Damn, you can't quote a smile. "We're talking tear gas maybe, cops swinging billy clubs. No more fun and games."

"I put my trust in God, Mr. Harriman. Who do you trust?"

Time to wrap this up. "Thank you, Reverend, you've been very helpful." Harriman rose.

"And thank you, Mr. Harriman. Won't you stay a few minutes to hear my message to the people? As you say, something is about to happen. And as a result, my sermon this evening will be somewhat different."

The reporter hesitated. He had to be up at five, ready to go. He was pretty sure the cops were going to do their thing tomorrow, and it might begin early. "What's it on?"

"Hell."

"In that case, I'll stay."

Buck rose and signaled one of his men, who came over, helped him don a simple vestment, and then accompanied him out of the tent. Harriman followed in their wake, pulling his recorder out of one pocket, trying to ignore the heavy reek of the encampment. They were headed, he knew, to a huge glacial erratic that reared out of the earth to the west of the tent city and which was now universally called the "preaching rock."

The bustle of the camp died away as Buck went out of sight behind the massive boulder, climbed the grassy hummock to the rear, then reappeared on its lofty crag. He raised his hands slowly. Watching from below, Harriman found hundreds of people drifting in out of the darkness to surround him.

"My friends," he began. "Good evening. Once again I thank you for joining me on this spiritual quest. It's been my custom, in these evening talks, to speak to you of this quest: to explain why we are here and what it is we must do. But tonight my subject will be different.

"Brothers and sisters, you will soon face a trial. A great trial. We won a mighty victory here yesterday, thanks be to God. But the agents of darkness are not easily turned back. Therefore, you must be strong. Be strong, and accept the will of God ."

Harriman, listening with recorder raised, was surprised by Buck's tone and manner. His voice was quiet, but it rang with an iron conviction he'd never heard before, even in the very first sermon delivered outside Cutforth's building. There was a strange look in Buck's bright eyes: a look of anticipation mingled with an almost stoic resignation.

"I have spoken to you many times about what we have come here to achieve. Now, on the eve of your trial to end all trials, I must take a moment to remind you of what we are up against and who your enemy is. Remember my words even when I am no longer among you."

The eve of your trial. Who your enemy is. No longer among you. Since his last meeting in Buck's tent, Harriman had begun reading the Bible-just a little, here and there-and the words of Jesus came back to him now: Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.

"Why, my friends and my brothers, were our medieval ancestors-unsophisticated and unlettered in other ways-so much more God-fearing than people today? But I speak the answer even as I ask the question. Because they had the fear of God. They knew what rewards awaited the chosen few in heaven. And they also knew what awaited the sinful, the wicked, the lazy and unbelieving.

"The fault lies not just with the people. Today's clergy are even more at fault. They sugarcoat the word of God, make light of his warnings, tell their flocks that hell is merely a metaphor or an antique concept with no actual reality. God's love is expansive and forgiving, they tell us. They lull their flocks into a false sense of entitlement. As if a baptism here, a few good deeds there, a communion or two, is a ticket to heaven. My friends, this is a tragic mistake."

Buck paused to glance around at the hushed multitude.

"God's love is a tough love. In this city, as in all great cities, people die every day. They die by the hundreds. At what point do you suppose all those poor souls begin to realize the real fate that lies in store for them? At what point do the scales fall from their eyes and they learn their entire life has been a lie-that they've spent it running from the light ever deeper into the darkness-and that they now have nothing but unimaginable torment to look forward to? There is no way to know for sure. But I believe at least some people have a glimpse of it in their last moments. I believe that, for these people, there is a creeping sense that something is terribly wrong: something far, far worse than the act of dying itself. In those last moments, as the soul begins to separate from the body, the fabric of everyday reality is ripped asunder. And suddenly they can see into the void beyond. Then comes a terrible oppression; overwhelming fear; rising heat. They cannot scream, they cannot flee. This is no panic attack that will pass; this is merely the foretaste of what is to come. This is a step onto the first tread of the long stairway down into hell.

"And what is hell itself like? Our ancestors were told it was a burning lake of fire, of sulfur and brimstone, in which one was eternally submerged. A terrible furnace whose flames bring no light, but merely darkness made visible. And in a simpler time, such a depiction was enough."

He stopped again to look around, fixing first one, then another, with his eyes.

"Mind you, I do believe this is hell for some. But it is not the only hell. There are countless hells, my brothers and sisters. There is a hell for each of us. Lucifer may be no match for our God. Yet he was a very mighty angel indeed, and as such, has powers far beyond our poor comprehension.

"You must remember something, and remember it always: Lucifer, the devil, was cast out of heaven because of his overmastering envy and evil. In his implacable jealousy, his unquenchable thirst for revenge, he now uses us as his pawns. Just as the rejected child hates a favored rival, he hates us for what we are: beloved children of God. And which of us can hope to comprehend the depths of his bottomless rage? Each human he corrupts, each soul he takes, is for him a victory: a fist shaken up at God.

"He knows our individual weaknesses, our petty desires; he knows what triggers our vanity or our greed or our lust or our cruelty. We have no secrets from him. He has handcrafted temptations for each one of us; he has strewn our path with a thousand ways to veer into darkness. And once he has successfully lured a soul into his kingdom-once he has won, yet again-do you think Satan will be content to leave that soul in a generic hell? Think again, my friends: think again. He who knows all our weaknesses also knows all our fears. Even those we may not know ourselves. And to complete his victory, to make his victim's suffering supreme , he will fashion each individual hell to be the most unendurable for its particular inhabitant. And worst of all, it will be a hell that lasts forever. And ever. And ever. For some, that may well mean a burning lake of fire. For others, it may mean an eternity nailed up in a black coffin, motionless, lightless, speechless, as insanity doubles and redoubles over long eons. For others, it might mean, say, eternal suffocation. Imagine that for a moment, my friends. Imagine that you've held your breath for two minutes, maybe three. Imagine the desperate need for oxygen, the exquisite torture. And yet in hell, there is no release of breath, no drawing in of good sweet air. Nor is there the blankness of oblivion. There is simply that moment of maximal agony, prolonged forever."

Maximal agony, prolonged forever. Despite himself, Harriman shivered in the warm night.

"Other hells might be more subtle. Imagine the man who always feared going crazy, doing so over decades or even slow centuries. And then beginning the process over. And over. Or imagine the doting mother, forced to watch-again and again and again-how after her own passing her children slide into poverty and neglect, drug addiction, depression, maltreatment, and death."

Here he stopped, and stepped up to the very edge of the rock.

"Take a moment to think of the very worst hell you could imagine for yourself. And then realize that Satan, who knows you even better than you know yourself, could fashion one far worse. And he will. He already has. In anticipation. Because he has only one salve for his bitter pain: the despair, the desperate pleadings, the cries and sufferings of his victims."

Buck paused again. He took a deep breath, then another. Then, in an even lower voice, he went on.

"I've said there was a hell for each of us. That hell is there, waiting for each one of you. Satan has made your hell so very easy to find, with a wide and comfortable road leading straight to it. It is far, far easier for us to go with the flow, to stroll unthinking down that broad pleasant avenue, far easier than to search for the rough, hidden turnoff that leads to heaven. We must fight against the lure of the easy road. It is a fight, my friends; a fight to the death. Because that is the only way-the only way-we are going to discover that difficult trail to heaven. I ask you to remember this in the trials we are about to face."

And then he turned and stepped down out of sight.