Chapter 98

98
HEADQUARTERS, BUCK STRATTON RADIO MINISTRIES, SAN DIEGO

"Good sermon, Pastor Stratton. The whole crew was listening on the monitor and everyone said how great it was! I don't quite understand it, but your words reach into me and move my heart every night." Harper was trying to get the little monster off to a good start. Stratton was usually in a foul mood after the sermon -- the kind of mood a hard drinker gets into when he's started for the day then gets interrupted for a couple of hours to deliver a sermon.

"You can just stuff your shit, Harper! Ain't no preacher livin' what could get to that twisted little soul of yours. Don'tcha in your wildest dreams figger I'm buying your little kiss ass lies! Nosirree! Nosirree, not for one minute!" The pastor was in terrible shape. His shirt collar, never large enough to accommodate his bright red neck, was soaked in sweat. His eyes seemed to be bulging a little more than usual, perhaps even beyond what could be accounted to his high blood pressure.

"You kin earn your keep by gettin' me a drink! A little mash wiskey'll set me back on these tired ole' dogs." Stratton landed in his favorite chair, a well worn recliner he had brought with him from the trailer, and positioned it all the way back. Always bow legged, his boots pointed out at angles to either side past the foot bar.

The 'tired old dogs' comment braced Ted Harper for the inevitable struggle to remove Stratton's boots. He handed the little red-faced man a drink and stepped away. Someone was at the door. Leaving the door closed, he leaned close enough to be heard through it and asked, "Who it is please? Pastor Stratton is resting right now."

"Open the godamned door! Open 'er up this instant! It's me! Lolly!" came the voice returning from the hallway.

Ted Harper made momentary eye contact with the pastor. Stratton's tired red eyes hesitated for a moment before he nodded. He downed the last half of the contents of the old fashion glass in a single pull as Harper opened the door.

Lolly Harshaw entered the room in a flurry as if she were twenty years younger. Her face was completely covered by a blanket of pinkishly off-colored foundation. The details of her eyes and mouth were accentuated in garish color applied by brush. Shocking red lipstick against the pallor of her cheeks hardly prepared the eye of the beholder for the iridescent green of her over done eye shadow. Taken as a single impression the aging face seemed to strike out at Ted Harper's sense of well being if not his actual physical balance.

She brushed past Harper as if he didn't exist. "Why, there's my sweet, sweet Honey Lambikins! Did you think your little Lolly Pop had fergot you? Ah just knew you'd want to see what daddy's little girl bought while she was out shoppin' today!" She turned in an exaggerated parody of a model on a run way. Her shopping accomplishment amounted to an expensive yet tasteless pair of sheer skin tight pedal pushers and an open shouldered peasant blouse. The potentially innocent outfit was set in motion by a string of large red plastic pearls. The flesh toned pedal pushers would have been indecent had the fabric not offered up an ever so slight metallic sheen. "I was trying to find just the right thing so's I could fire that hot Christian blood up tonight once I git you home to our little love nest! You better be dustin' off the Song of Solomon 'cause I kin already barely wait!" Lolly was able to deliver all these words during the time it took her to walk from the door to where Pastor Stratton was sitting, resigned to being unable to interject even the feeblest comment.

Still gushing, she planted a whorishly red lip print on the old man's head, evaporating what little decorum Stratton still had in a carefree whimsy. Adding insult to injury, her false eyelashes had reached just to his bald spot, painting dainty cat's feet of mascara in the center of his pate.

The Pastor tried to relax under the onslaught of affection. In fact he remembered his normal self well enough to brush the aging show girl aside long enough to address Ted Harper. "Harper, git over here and pull my boots off!" The request seemed bizarre, but the man was actually so fat that he could not possibly reach his heels to do the job himself. Harper dreaded it. Stratton loved it. The Pastor saw it as a perk of his powerful if precarious position. Left to his own devices he would be obliged to wear the boots on through the rest of his life and into his death bed. Made of the most supple lizard skin, the footwear had cost upwards of a thousand dollars. But that was only a starting point for Pastor Buck. He had contracted a "leather artist" from Enid, Oklahoma, to add an additional thousand dollars' worth of horrendous multi-colored Christian symbols, many unrecognizable, to the boot's lowers. The result was a clear nightmare not only of tortured taste, but also of pinched toes and aching arches to the man who couldn't walk that well when he wasn't wearing them -- even sober.

Harper turned toward his duties, but as he stepped toward the lounger and the scene of Lolly's, by now, invasive indiscretion with the man she hoped would someday marry her, she interrupted. "Hey! just a minute there, you! Since I'm here, I'll do the boot takin' off tonight! Wouldn't my little soldier rather have a woman's touch?" she asked Stratton who was somewhat relieved at the prospect of having her attentions directed at his feet rather than his face.

"I shore would, honey plum! I have to say I got a darned Christian hate fer them boots. Ever time I go hobblin' across the stage to deliver my sermon, I'm wonderin' if I'm gonna fall on my can, right in front of the damned studio audience. I only wear 'em 'cause I'm too damned short if I don't. just wouldn't do to have the most powerful man in America peepin' up over his podium like a damned ole cock roach a'peekin' outta some crack." Buck Stratton braced his hands on the arms of his recliner in preparation for the first tug.

"Now, now, my little sweet potato! You just forget that 'too short' talk while you're around me. I ain't ever complained of too short, if you get what I mean!" Lolly started to giggle again. Aside from being starkly superficial, she somehow managed to inject both a shocking vulgarity and an irritating Southern accent into it. The resulting masterpiece would have been a solid foundation for the defense in a first degree murder trial.

"Not in front of the help, Lolly! How many times do I gotta tell you that talkin' that bedroom shit out in public 'll make 'em call you worse'n what they do already! You kin be Jezebel back to the mansion, but out in public you better be a tight ass little Christian bitch who don't approve o'nothing just like them fancy church women don't. You can just start a'usin' your head or you gonna get another spankin' from Daddy!" Stratton's last comment seemed to have reached what consciousness there was in the woman. She shut up and began to work diligently on the boots.

"Pastor Stratton, if you just give me the okay, I'll have that podium shortened a little and solve this boot problem by tomorrow's sermon. Your production people can get you set up just right. I will personally oversee all the work. Think how much more comfortable you're gonna be out there if you don't have to wear them boots." Harper was gradually mastering certain aspects of illiterate speech. Even his meager progress seemed to have a calming effect on the Pastor, who felt more at home when those around him joined in butchering the language. He felt more at home, but not more trusting.

"Oh, go on ahead and do it. I suffer enough to be righteous without the godamned boots. But it had better be right, Harper. Got it? Right!" Stratton had his left boot off at this point. He had moved halfway toward being as rational as he got.

With Lolly still busy working on the right boot and Stratton distracted by the view into her purposely revealing bodice as she worked at his feet, Harper saw his opportunity. He made the Pastor another drink. He paused as he handed it to the man in the chair. The pause was a theater pause, long enough for Stratton to notice.

"Are you feelin' all right, Pastor Stratton. You're lookin' tired. Not that you don't have every right to be, keepin' up with your schedule and all." Ted Harper spoke loudly enough that Lolly would hear every word.

She spoke up before the Pastor could speak, as usual. "He ain't never felt better. Lord Almighty! He's as frisky as a bull on a cold morning!"

"Well, Andy and I've been talking..." Harper began to deliver message he and Rosenthal had devised.

"This ought'a be good. Just like a rattle snake a'tellin' me a joke. Don't matter if it ain't funny or not, ya cain't let the little bugger too close to your ear!" Stratton, now free of his tormentors, sighed as he kicked the last boot off onto the floor.

"Now, now, Buck honey. You pay this college boy to think around here. Why not listen to 'em?" Lolly's intercession was right on que. Harper smiled inwardly.

"Alright Lolly Pop, I'll listen to him just cuz you want me to. What is it, Harper?" Although his voice was as demanding as usual, Stratton seemed prepared to actually listen.

"Pastor Stratton, I've been thinkin' that perhaps your destiny is for something greater than this radio ministry. By that I mean something that still would give you the chance to speak to the followers, but would also make it possible for you to put some of the Biblical truths you talk about in your sermons into practice." Harper dramatized seriousness in his face and voice more for Lolly's sake than Stratton's.

"If your talking about crap sales, son, you're right. We ain't sold half as much crap as I plan to." Pastor Stratton's third drink was beginning to hit him. Enough whiskey tended to make him more honest than usual.

"We were thinking about the idea of you going into politics. You're the one preachin' the gospel of truth to the nation and no one wants to change that none. Everyone's countin' on you! But just think of the good that could be done with a man of God sitting in the California Assembly!" Harper pumped the little man's ego as rapidly as possible before the Pastor lurched into something else.

"Christ, Harper! Ah already got more then I can handle. It's a goddamned load o' work to sheperd this here herd of God's flock. Hell, man there's near on to a hundred million of 'em!" Stratton's eyes began to bulge again.

"Anyways, Harper, you an' your lil' Jew friend are fergettin' one thing. These here sermons o' mine are just 'xactly what's bringin' in prosperity to this ministry. You go horsin' around with that and you two are a'pissin' in the milk pail!" Stratton turned to bark at Lolly. "You just make yourself useful by sasheyin' over yonder 'n gettin' me a drink!"

"Now I'm gonna tell you somethin', boy. See, ain't just anybody can step up there and talk on the radio and do what I'm doin'. Nosirree! Nosirree! Not at all. You gotta have the voice o' God reachin' down into your soul or else you won't have the inspiration it takes. I can tell when God's a'talkin' to me. I can feel the holy message a'comin' into me. Fact, it just comes into me right about here!" Buck Stratton pointed to his belly which by this time had broken the bounds of his too small shirt.

"Ah git a kinda' itchy twitchy feelin' right there, boy. That's when I know God's a talking to me. You don't just dump your ministry and jump into politics when you're the one's got that little twitch! Nosirree! Nosirree Bob! That little twitch is just specially saved by God for the chosen one." The Pastor turned again toward Harper, giving him the best he could muster for a piercing stare. "Yeah, Harper. And I'm the chosen one around here. I'm the one God's a talkin' to 'n don't you ferget it! I might need me some new help, but God 'n me done agreed that I don't need no new job! Only new job around here'll be to replace your sorry ass!"

As if to make what pathetic emphasis he could, Buck sat up in the recliner and said slowly. "It's havin' to worry about you two godamned snakes a' creepin' on me all the time's what makes me tired! Mebbe I don't need any new job t'all. Mebbe I just need different help!"

Lolly once again took the little man's head in her arms. Turning to Ted Harper, she said, "I think you're a bad person."