Stuff Dreams Are Made Of (13 page)

“What do you think, Skip?”

I hadn’t been listening enough. Damn.

“Well,” James was staring at me. “Should we have Daron spend tonight and tomorrow with us?”

I’d missed the turn in the conversation.

“Huh?”

“Skip! Give me a sign, amigo. I think Daron could help. He could be our eyes, our voice, and he knows the players.

Putting it to me, right in front of the guy himself.

“We had a good lunch, we’ll have a good dinner. Let’s say we pay Daron a couple hundred bucks,” he glanced at Daron and got a nod, “and he gives us a hand.”

I had no idea where this was going.

“Maybe we ought to kick it around? You and me?”

James frowned. I was embarrassing him in front of a business associate. Well, excuse me. I had an investment in this too.

“Skip, dude, Daron is going to help us.” And that was that.

I watched the counter, as the waitress patted the white-haired man on the head. She patted, then shook his head. He made no attempt to respond. Either he was passed out or dead.

“All right, James. Daron is part of your team. But his salary comes out of your half.” And
that
was
that
.

We snuck into the tent for the late afternoon show. Cashdollar, resplendent in a maroon tux and black cape, came storming out from the wings, the wind machine kicking into high velocity.

“Impressed? Well, you shouldn’t be.” And he went into his opening act for twenty minutes.

“He’s going to mention Romans. You just wait. What was it he said about the senator this morning? God takes matters into his own hands?” James was positive. Positive about the negatives.

Cashdollar worked the crowd, pacing back and forth on the huge stage, working up a personal sweat and a fervor in the faithful as they shouted “Amen” and clapped their hands. The choir chimed in at the appointed moments and when the reverend pointed to the banner behind him everyone screamed.

“Say it with me,” he shouted. “Say it with me.” The voice boomed over the speaker system. “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion!”

As he thrust the gold Bible at them, waving it in the air, they said it, over and over again.

“Did
I
say it? No. Did
you
say it? No. Who says it, brothers
and sisters? The
Bible
says it.” He shook the book. “The Bible. God’s holy word says it.” Now the gold book was the featured visual on the huge screens. “It’s in here, my friends. And not just my Bible, but your Bible. God’s word. God says it. In his very own book. People say ‘reverend, God never talks to me.’ Well listen! Listen. God says, from his lips to your ears, you will be made rich, but there’s a catch. There’s a catch. You must be generous on every occasion.” He paused. That was the important part of his message. “You must be generous on every occasion.”

I glanced at James to see if he was planning on putting any more money in the collection plate. I figured he wasn’t going to be quite as generous this time. After all, we’d paid Brook $200, and he was about to pay his good friend Daron another chunk of change for hanging around. I was right. As the collection plates were handed down the aisle, James’s hand never dipped into his pocket. Daron and I followed suit.

The organ music was loud and shrill and the choir fought to rise above it with a spiritual sounding song. All I knew was, the collection plate was going to be minus by a little more than $8.00.

Cashdollar walked back out with two burly men by his side, both of them wearing coal black suits and looking very somber. In contrast to his slicked-back hair, these two men had shaved their heads and Cashdollar’s rather rotund figure was almost dwarfed by the six-foot-five muscular sidekicks.

“Some of you may know that we’ve been rallying against the forces of bigotry. We’ve been shouting down the voices of evil and those who would stand in the way of the Lord’s work. Some of you may know that.”

There were scattered “amens.”

“Some of you may know that I pointed a finger,” he held up his index finger. James raised his middle finger, but kept his hand down low. “I pointed a finger at a local radio host. Barry Romans.
A voice that is filled with hatred, filled with evil venom, filled with intent to do harm.” His voice was hoarse, gravely, and filled with passion and emotion.

More “amens.”

“Barry Romans speaks about the gospel according to Barry. He is a racist, a bigot, and he spews his poison on the airwaves of our nation.”

Loud amens and booing.

Cashdollar held up his hand, and we could see the creases of his palm on the big screen TVs. “What many of you do not know is that Barry Romans was gunned down today, not ten miles from where we are at this very moment.”

A hush fell over the crowd. Then there was a low murmuring of voices that got louder by the second.

“My brethren, we preach change through peaceful actions. We preach change through peaceful means.”

There was a pleading tone in his voice. It amazed me how he could change the entire tone by just the modulation of his speech.

“It is not our intention to bring an end to a violent life with violence. So we pray for the recovery of Barry Romans. We pray that he may live another day to understand the sins he has perpetrated on the public’s airwaves. A moment of silence please, so that we all may pray that God’s will be done. Whatever God wills, we pray that it be done.”

A hush fell over the congregation. Daron, still wearing his porkpie hat, leaned over and whispered loudly, “As long as God’s will is the rev’s will.” A woman in the next row turned and stared daggers at him.

Cashdollar picked it up again, the two men standing very close to him.

“We wanted no physical harm to come to Mr. Romans. And we will not tolerate physical harm to anyone, even those who
would possibly try to harm us. Jesus suffered the cross and never fought back. We are Christians. Therefore, we are peaceful people. Let me hear an amen.”

The crowd gave it to him with a resounding shout.

“But you know what God says. The Bible clearly states, brothers and sisters, that the Lord says ‘vengeance is mine.’ The Lord will take matters into his own hands and it is out of ours. Amen.”

“Where the hell is this going?” James shook his head.

“Mr. Romans is in the hospital, recovering from this dastardly, cowardly act. And now,
we
have received death threats. Yes, my people, I have received a threat on my life.”

There was a cry from two thousand plus people. A cry, followed by a gasping. James even made a guttural sound.

“It is necessary for the next few days for me to have these two — deacons — at my side. They will seek to protect me from anyone who would attempt to physically harm me.”

James whispered. “What about the Lord’s prerogative?”

“The Lord spoke to me.”

“Ah, there it is.”

“And after much prayer, after soulful, heartfelt prayer, I know that the Lord asked me to protect myself from the slings and arrows of others that would try to bring me down.”

Now there was a loud din of voices, screams, and shouts. There were even a couple of shrill whistles. Here was the man who was going to show us the road to riches, and now he was about to be assassinated. Another cry from the masses and a conversational murmur of voices as people turned to their neighbors and expressed disbelief.

“Jesus.”

“Funny how you would bring up his name. Cashdollar was just talking about him, James.” Daron tugged the brim of his porkpie hat.

I was in the presence of greatness. I was watching a true master of the arts. Here was a self-professed man of the cloth who had taken the attempted assassination, the near death of a media celebrity, and turned the entire focus on himself. All in a matter of seconds. The magician David Copperfield had nothing at all on Reverend Preston Cashdollar.

The crowd was stirred up. They’d all come in the hopes of becoming wealthy, and now there were shootings and death threats. This couldn’t be a good thing. The voices of two thousand plus people in an enclosed area can be just plain loud. And it was.

“My people, please.” Cashdollar held up his Bible, calming the crowd. “We will work through this.”

The noise diminished. Slowly, but surely, they turned their attention back to the man who’d brought them together.

“Let us remember the message we’ve all come to share. You will be made rich in every way. Say it with me.”

And the crowd chanted the message, reading from the banner the scripture that was burned into their minds. The two bodyguards melted into the curtains and the Reverend Cashdollar held the congregation spellbound in the palm of his hand. After all the crap, he had them right where he wanted them.

“Let me bring out two people, just like you, who heard this message three years ago. Brethren, welcome brother Steve Olean and brother William Riley.”

There was light, scattered applause. The names sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place them.

“Brother Steve Olean and brother William Riley both believed this message. They prayed on it, they came to our revival meetings, they met with brother Thomas LeRoy our director of finance, and they met with me.”

Two young white guys walked out on stage, dressed in casual slacks and knit polo shirts.

“Ladies. Gentlemen. I give to you the founders of
Meet and Greet,
one of the Internet’s biggest meeting places.”

James grabbed my shoulder. “Oh, my God. Do you know who these guys are?”

“He just told us, James.”

“Skip, amigo, these guys were just on the cover of
Rolling Stone
. They’re like rock gods of the tech world.”

I knew who they were. You’d have to be in the Stone Age not to know the business they started. Started, and sold to one of the big networks for something like a billion dollars. Maybe two billion. James even has a personal page on
Meet and Greet
, just like
My Space
, complete with his picture and a doctored history. Believe me, I knew who these two guys were.

“My friends, these two gentlemen would like to tell you their story. Do you want to hear it?”

There was a frenzy of screaming and applause. This was the meat and potatoes. This was what the Cashdollar experience was all about. Two very rich white dudes who owed their success to God — and to Preston Cashdollar. The two men spoke for the next fifteen minutes, telling their story very well. They spoke of their belief in a higher power, they referred to the banner in an almost choreographed manner. Olean and Riley owned the big yellow tent.

“Do you have a dream?” Riley, a thirty-year-old, short, Tom Cruise-looking guy took the lead. “Do you?”

There was confusion in the ranks. Shouts of “amen” and “yes, brother” followed.

Olean leaned into the microphone. “If you have a dream, you can make it happen. If we did it, you can do it.”

The crowd screamed. Shouted. They stood up, and as
strange as it felt, as cynical as I was, I stood up with them. We had a dream. I wanted it to happen. And when they were done, they asked the congregation to repeat the phrase. It came back louder than ever.

You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion.

During the next passing of the plate, James put in ten bucks. I put in five. I didn’t want him to feel totally alone. Daron Styles smirked and shook his head.

Is it me? Is it the people I hang out with? Is it the society we live in? Is it the American way? One minute I’m totally bummed out. The idea that someone, maybe in the Cashdollar camp, tried to commit a murder. The idea that someone has threatened Cashdollar himself. My feeling that Cashdollar is a slimeball. And then, in an instant, I find myself sucked into a scam. I know it’s a scam, but I want to believe it. I want to believe that
you will be made rich in every way
. What is wrong with me, with the people around me, that our belief system can change in a nanosecond? What we believe one second can totally change due to greed.

I’m not what you’d call a religious person. I believe in a God, but only because there’s got to be something out there. I don’t buy into this primeval slime that we supposedly evolved from.

So all of a sudden, I’m investing $5, betting that God will make me rich. And I already know where that $5 is going.

“You guys know where your money is going, right?” Styles had cocked the hat back on his head and, back at the truck, he was eating a burger that James had cooked for him as he prepared
for the evening rush. The bun was loaded with pickles, peppers, relish, onion, mustard, and whatever else he could find.

James sat on his upside-down pickle bucket, his apron on, waiting for the crowd to come piling out of the yellow tent. “Yeah. Some of it goes to the full-timers. But you know, damn it, you see two guys up there who are worth a billion dollars, and you’ve got to wonder.”

Styles sat on the rear of the truck, dangling his legs over the edge. He sipped on one of our expensive green labels and kicked his feet back and forth. “Yeah, you’re right, James. You’ve got to wonder how much Cashdollar paid them for that testimonial.”

I hadn’t thought of that. I was up by the grill, precooking potatoes, onions, and peppers. “What do they need the money for? They’re worth billions?”

“Boys, read the
Time
magazine article on them. Read the
Rolling Stone
interview. See if they mention Cashdollar one time.”

James took a long swallow of the good beer. “You mean, they don’t mention him at all? It’s a hoax?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I don’t read that crap. But I’ll bet they don’t mention him. I’ll bet they don’t say a word about how Cashdollar was responsible for their wealth and fame.”

“So, what could he pay them? My God, they’re billionaires.”

“Look,” Styles finished the beer and pointed to the refrigerator. James, the obedient lapdog, brought him another. We were almost out.

“I’m not saying these guys didn’t attend one of the rev’s meetings. And I’m not saying that they didn’t contribute some jack to his fund. And, I’m not saying that they don’t believe that Cashdollar and the scripture had something to do with their wealth.”