Reverend America: A Journey of Redemption (7 page)

Damnation and salvation came as easy as music to the young Reverend. He could do the Valley of Dry Bones and he knew the Mighty Clouds of Joy. Speaking in tongues had to be worked up to, but it could be pushed along by Poppy faking a fit (stammering out the words to an Albanian drinking song). He got so he could testify to beat the band—and the flame took off. Lumber City, Georgia, Pickens, South Carolina—Paducah, Bean Valley, Hurricane River Cave. People took him for an ordained minister, so, he performed baptisms on the shores of Bull Shoals Lake and a full immersion wedding in Lake Pontchartrain—after Poppy had given him a crash course in how to swim.

Hard times were performing to sparse attendance due to inclement weather or some competitive event, like a tractor pull. It was always much easier to get hyped up before a crowd, and Casper would often think of that in years to come—how difficult it is to sway an individual, but how smooth it can be to work a whole audience.

A couple of well-timed lunges and raised arm pleas, his patter, and his singing—that was what people came for. “An evil generation seeks a sign!” he’d cry out—and then hold up a copy of a newspaper from the nearest big city. He learned how to both shout and whisper into a microphone—and where there was no PA system, his little voice, which wasn’t little at all, could be used to great effect to draw the people closer. That gave Rose and Poppy a better chance of targeting individuals ripe for healing, and a subtle system of eye contact and code words could alert Reverend America. Soon they had their own PA and could’ve had their own road crew if Poppy hadn’t been stingy and suspicious of outsiders.

They claimed they didn’t believe in what they were spouting—but each time they “soaked the wood ducks” they said a prayer. (Soaking became an important image for young Mathias, as one of the principal family activities beyond performing was doing laundry together in a steel drum—and while doing that, they always sang.)

Outside of their music together, there was little tenderness, which isn’t to say there wasn’t teamwork. No hugs and kisses—but there were pats on the back—and he was never struck. They didn’t celebrate his birthday—but they didn’t acknowledge their own either. Instead, they’d lash out with mashed potatoes and chicken fried steak when there was a “good haul.” And he was given occasional “boosters” when he’d performed especially well. Christmas and Easter became important, but only for professional reasons. The one hint at a traditional family occasion was Thanksgiving, which they commemorated by getting invited to another family’s dinner—Poppy and Rose were skillful at that. Once they were treated to a banquet of bush turkey and home cured country ham in red-eye gravy by a mountain family in Tennessee with fourteen children. People living in a split log and tarpaper house, with excelsior for insulation. Mathias True gave the blessing.

Together they’d end up traveling as far north as Southern Ohio, east to Newport News, south into the palmetto groves of Florida, and back into southern Colorado. They mainly worked the fundamentalist evangelical churches—Oneness, Wesleyan Holiness, Higher Life—the Assemblies of God. Baptists were good with the money and there were some charismatic pockets of Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists—even a few Catholics (rare, but monied).

They could draw a crowd with Seventh Day Adventists and some Brethren—but their biggest successes always came with the more extreme audiences like Church of God and the snake handlers of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus’ Name. About the only religious group Poppy and Rose had any genuine scorn for was the Mormons. (“Never trust a Moron,” Poppy said, although, along with the Grand Ole Opry, they all enjoyed listening to broadcasts of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.) They did well in the Delta and the Smoky Mountains. Often the smaller and poorer the hamlet, the more money they made. Healing became what they were known for.

Now, you may be of the mind that faith healing is just an out and out con—but as Poppy would say, “That’s because you’re looking at the game from the wrong end of the table. Healing isn’t the con—faith is the con—and people fool themselves in that. We’re not fooling people. We’re freeing them to believe fully in what they already do—or what they 
say
 they believe in. Healing? Who doesn’t want to be healed? There’s always something wrong. Complaining is what people love to do the most. Gratitude is the shortest-lived sentiment there’ll ever be.”

In his view, “The trick is to make folks believe the real cause of their problem is a 
secret
 that they’re hiding from themselves—and that’s so often what the case really is if you think about it. All we do is convince them that they need to let that secret out. They need to demonstrate their own healing to prove the trueness of their faith. If they don’t, they show weakness before others—and short of death, that’s what everyone fears the most.”

Understood this way, you can see why faith healing works—or rather, how they so astutely made it work—from Alpine, Texas to Jacksonville. The healer identifies or creates doubt concerning the 
real infirmity
. It’s not someone’s palsy or a torn retina that needs to be healed. The infection, the warts, the neuralgia—these are just 
symptoms of anemic faith
. Once the afflicted person has been cast in this light, publicly, they naturally buck up. People who have been using disability as a means of gaining sympathy are suddenly caught out. People with genuine, serious maladies, who have garnered sympathy, are equally caught out. Instead of the spotlight being on the healer to work some miracle, the scrutiny turns upon the invalid to demonstrate the strength of their faith. It’s their weakness of belief that underlies their disability or illness. What’s more, their weakness means the healing energy in the room is diminished so that others may not find their cure.

Done skillfully, most people in the heightened atmosphere of a worship service, and especially in a larger camp meeting, never perceive this subtle shift in the dynamic.

Since most human ailments have some crucial psychological aspect to them (even the most obvious and dramatic physical injuries or conditions)—when primed with the right psychological message, the problem lessens—inner resources are galvanized. Should the relief wear off later (as it inevitably will), the sufferer now has a new suspicion about the reason why and is more inclined to keep quiet or exaggerate the earlier benefits they received. “Yeah, the knee’s gone crook a little bit, but it’s so much better than it was before. I can’t tell you how much less ache there is. Gettin’ a good night’s sleep again.”

In the heat of the moment though, they will testify to total blessed relief. “That’s why it’s called faith healing,” Poppy shrewdly pointed out. “We heal their faith—we don’t heal through faith.”

And of course, when the organ’s playing madly and people are wailing—babies crying—folding chairs tipping over—the smell of sawdust and salon perfume thick in the air, the local preachers liquored up (ministers prefer gin because it has less odor than whiskey)—men clutching at their wives, who are mewling and shaking with all the passion of their sexual frustration oozing out in front of everyone—and then an albino child in a coat of many colors yells and sings like a mutant angel—each testimony of Praise Jesus relief fuels the white fire of faith. So the club footed jig, the stooped straighten—and the white fire sweeps through the room setting every soul alight. Each witness makes the next more certain.

Once there was a woman in the Carolina woods with a huge spongy goiter. Reverend America felt fear and disgust even looking at it—and that was the hinge. He knew how he’d been looked at—he could see in her eyes how ashamed she was. He put his hand tenderly on the obscene growth and caressed it. Then he kissed the goiter and said, “Sister, you are perfect in God’s sight, hold your head up high.” The effect was as miraculous as if he’d made the great lump disappear. For a moment he had. Everyone saw that woman in a new way—and she saw herself anew.

In White Oak, Kentucky, a puffed up angry woman brought in a dribbling Downs syndrome boy of about fifteen and demanded, “Here! Can you cure 
him
?” Her voice was pure challenge. One glance revealed she sought no relief. She had no faith. She wanted to cause a fuss—to be noticed. She was proud in her bitterness, crying like Job in his misery—and the boy, who was distressed at being dragged into view of everyone, showed signs of beginning a meltdown tantrum.

Reverend America took his Star Spangled hat and put it on the boy’s head—and held up his hands for Patty Cake. Yes—even that boy knew Patty Cake. A wounded smile of pure delight broke out across his face and the entire congregation murmured, feeling the warmth of it. Reverend America said, “Only God can heal—only God knows when to heal . . . and only God can know how the healing should be done. Sometimes, Sister, we can have our lives saved by his divine wisdom and not see the gift.”

Zing. If the woman had been hit with ten thousand volts of electricity, the result couldn’t have been more intense. All her pride, which had been rage and a sense of abandonment, turned upon itself and she fell to her knees in tears. She suddenly had shown herself to be a bad mother—spiteful, ungrateful—and then Reverend America knelt down and redeemed her. He held her trembling hand and wiped the tears from her eyes, and said, “Let’s pray together. Let’s all pray for the shining gift you’ve been given.” Rose came right in on the organ, singing “Thankful Am I,” and as the old saying goes, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Curiously, their approach worked especially well on what might seem to be the toughest audience of all—the hardened Doubters. “Doubters carry signs,” Poppy said. “You can spot ‘em immediately, and there aren’t many.” It was true. “Mostly, the folks who don’t believe don’t come. Almost everybody wants to be hornswoggled in some way—that’s what makes it real. But we like Doubters because they fall hard and make a big noise when they do.”

They were in fact easier to distinguish than a lawyer from a hog farmer—and they often raced into the trap set for them merely by holding up their hands and identifying themselves to all when called upon. “Who here doubts that miracles can be worked in this place in the name of Jesus?”

For those canny enough not to fall so quickly under the hostile gaze of the assembled, it didn’t matter—there was no escape. They weren’t aware of the sign they carried (very few of us are), but Reverend America was—and Poppy and Rose were always there to signal him in case he missed what they thought was the most appropriate victim.

Then out came old Jessie.

Jessie was a barbaric antique wheelchair Poppy had found in Martins Ferry, Ohio. Just looking at the spokes and wires made you feel paralyzed in some deep inner way. It was a great prop and it turned the Doubter’s challenge back against them. “Come sit in this chair for a moment.”

There for a showdown, to prove the shysters wrong, of course the chosen Doubter had no choice but to comply. And then, “they were cooked like a dinner,” Poppy would chuckle.

Reverend America would wheel them around, close in amongst the other people—all the resentful faces looking down now. There’s something about sitting in a wheelchair Poppy realized, that’s instantly debilitating. It’s not like any other kind of chair—and this wheelchair was downright fear-rendering. “Could it be that this is the way God sees us all?” Reverend America would ask. “Crippled in our faith—needing to be pushed? We’re not only a burden for the Lord our God, but to those with real pains to suffer, real trials to endure.”

A sudden jerk of Jessie and the increasingly uncomfortable “volunteer” would invariably plunge forward onto the floor. Snap. Before the Doubter could regain equilibrium of any kind, Reverend America would holler, “Rise in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!” And of course, the Doubter would rise—but now having been turned into an example—a part of the show. People would actually cheer and Rose would instantly come in with one of the most boisterous songs, and before the Doubter had a chance to respond—whether an attempted joke or a scathing remark—the gathered would drown the unfortunate out. They’d seen a wheelchair bound person fall and rise. No one could change that. The Doubter would only find scorn in pursuing a case against the healers.

What to do with someone who actually arrived in a wheelchair—someone who maybe really couldn’t walk—someone missing a leg or an arm? Use your head. Any traumatic injury of that magnitude leaves psychic scars—focus on those. Someone confined to a wheelchair almost undoubtedly has other health issues if they’re an adult. If they’re young, they’ve been given a blessing you have to help them see. What about those who can’t see? Well, maybe they can and they’re the ones who are faking.

Once in Bonespur, Mississippi, Reverend America pulled the wool from everyone else’s eyes when he exposed a teenage girl pretending she’d lost her sight. He didn’t need any help from Poppy and Rose to spot her—he remembered Carina from the way house in Charleston—how she held her head, how she moved. He kept a wide range of trinkets in the many pockets of his red, white and blue suit—joy buzzers, feathers, a ping pong ball—little things that might come in handy. Without warning, he tossed the ping pong ball at her—she ducked. “Most people don’t rehearse enough,” Poppy said.

But whether the people were shams or genuinely suffering—psychosomatically affected or just wanting some attention—outside Abilene or Swannanoa—the process was always the same. After the bread of Reverend America’s body had been shared, Rose would crank the music up to a slow building frenzy, beginning with Only Man Josiah Darkwater’s archaic blues song “Not Dead Yet,” which steals the chorus from the old English hymn “Joy Forever,” but twists it into something you might overhear in a luncheonette in Marietta—while Reverend America would call upon his tobacco smoked voice to speak solemnly of the blood—showing everyone a Mason jar full of chicken blood, which he’d pour very slowly into a polished white alabaster bowl, always letting people in the front row or nearest to him get a good whiff of it—the smell of life and death.