“Robber barons,” interrupted the man on Mr. Wertz’s right. Timmy pictured a family in Zorro masks sitting on shiny black thrones.
“Robber barons is right,” Mr. Wertz said. “Now these Bennetts, these robber barons, they had themselves an estate near Hornets Ridge, a village ’bout a slingshot east of Mount Pawtuckaway, off in the Merrimack Valley of New Hampshire. And they’d get their richy-rich pals to come up by sleeper train to join ’em on pleasure trips. By day, they’d hunt. By night, they’d party in the tent. Stuff themselves sick on game, French pastries, and booze. Oh, yes! And dance to jazz bands bused in from New York!”
“Never mind about that,” the man said. “Get to the good part.”
“I’m getting there, I’m getting there,” said Mr. Wertz. He had another glug of cider. “Now the Bennetts had this son by the name of Junior. The worst of a bad lot. He had slick hair, silk ascots, and wiggled his eyebrows at every gal in the county.”
A chorus of hoots: “A walking erection!”
“Doubled the town birthrate!”
“Wore out the back-seat springs on his daddy’s Hudsons!”
“At least he was good for something!” said a man to the left.
“Who’s telling the story?” Mr. Wertz demanded.
“You, Tom, you,” the men cackled.
“Right, so anyways, this Junior, he finally bites off more than he can chew. Starts making time with Nellie Burns, wife of the sheriff’s deputy, Reggie. Reggie gets wind of the hanky-panky. Late one night, he grabs his shotgun and heads to the Bennett tent. There he finds his wife and Junior naked as jay birds ’cept for their party hats. What happened next wasn’t pretty.”
The men fell silent. Timmy’s eyeballs were out of their sockets.
“‘The wages of sin is death,’” the man on the left observed.
“Amen,” said Mr. Wertz. “That’s Brother Percy’s very text. Adultery happened in that tent, lad. A double murder-suicide to boot. To this very day, you can see the holes where the lovebirds had their skulls blasted through to Kingdom Come. And if you look real hard, you can even see some brains.”
Timmy nagged his Aunt Grace for days. He nagged his Uncle Albert too. “I gotta see inside the tent. I just gotta.” The couple discussed their nephew’s request into the wee hours. Aunt Grace was inclined to say no. As a Presbyterian, she found the idea of tent evangelists embarrassing. “Too much singing, clapping, and general mayhem, not to mention those tambourines.”
But as Uncle Albert pointed out, the Wertzes were pretty respectable for Pentecostals. “Maybe our Timmy could learn something from a God-fearing sermon on the wages of sin.”
Aunt Grace counted to ten; Albert gave in to everyone, except her. She wrung a concession. “We’ll give you our blessing,” she told the boy, “providing Mrs. Wertz promises you’ll be home for tuck-in by nine o’clock.”
Billy and his mother arrived at five to collect Timmy for the twenty-block walk to the fairgrounds; Mr. Wertz had gone ahead to help raise the tent. Before the revival, they planned to meet up with other families from Bethel Gospel Hall for a potluck picnic; then, after the testifying, to have Timmy home by nine as promised. Uncle Albert and Aunt Grace were waiting with Timmy on the verandah, Uncle Albert clutching the family Bible, Aunt Grace cradling a container of her special potato salad.
“Sorry we’re late,” Mrs. Wertz hollered from the street.
Aunt Grace smiled primly. Pentecostals could carry on like pig-callers in a barnyard, but Presbyterians knew better than to make a ruckus. “Why, Betty,” she said when Mrs. Wertz was within speaking distance, “aren’t you looking festive.” This was in recognition of Mrs. Wertz’s pleated navy dress and string of imitation pearls. For herself, Aunt Grace wore only black on the Sabbath — as Christ had died for her sins, it was the least she could do — but she understood that in fashion, as in most other things, Pentecostals had their own notion of the appropriate. Ah well, who was she to judge? God would let Pentecostals know what was what in the fullness of time, and in any case it wasn’t as if she had to invite Betty Wertz inside.
Mrs. Wertz showed off the frock with a spin. “Thanks muchly. It’s nearly new from my sister Bess, out Ingersoll way. Lucky for me, she’s been enjoying her suppers of late. Heavens, I wish I could put on some flesh, but there you are.”
“And here you are,” said Aunt Grace, presenting Mrs. Wertz with her special potato salad before the conversation could descend to body talk.
“You shouldn’t have,” Mrs. Wertz replied, packing it next to the bologna sandwiches and celery sticks in her picnic basket.
“No trouble,” Aunt Grace allowed. “I make it with olives and pimentos, you know. With a speck of pepper for zest.” Aware of a wriggling at her side, she glanced at Timmy, and faced an unspeakable horror. “Timothy! Get your hands out of your pants!”
“But my nuts itch.”
“Timothy!”
“Well, they do!”
Aunt Grace gave him two quick spanks. “That’s for scratching. And that’s for sass.” She pivoted back to Mrs. Wertz, red as a beet. “If Timothy gets himself into any mischief, give him a good smack. It’s the one thing he understands.” Timmy made a face. Aunt Grace grabbed him by the ear. “If we hear of any hijinks, there’ll be more where this came from.” With that she gave Timmy a third and final spank that sent the lad scooting down the verandah steps.
“I’m sure he’ll be just fine,” Mrs. Wertz said, as the boys ran laughing in circles to the street, the picnic basket swinging between them.
The Tent of the Holy Redemption was a forty-by-sixty-foot blue-and-white monster. Timmy fell silent the moment it came into view. As he approached, all he could think was: “Once upon a time, a man was naked in that tent. With a woman. And now they’re dead. And in Hell. Both of them. Together. I wonder if they’re still naked?”
“Hi there.” It was Mr. Wertz, fresh from securing the last support. He gave Mrs. Wertz a sweaty bear hug and she didn’t even mind. Timmy bet they did things that would make his Uncle Albert and Aunt Grace drop dead of a heart attack.
Mr. Wertz turned to the youngsters. “What would you kids say to a tour?” The boys were in heaven.
Their first port of call was the portable generator and trailer-truck at the rear. The truck was bright enough for a carnival caravan, covered in colourful curlicues, squiggles, and capital letters. “She’s quite the beast, eh?” Mr. Wertz enthused. “Everything you see — tent, poles, generator, the whole shebang — folds up and fits inside.”
“Are those the eyes of God?” Timmy asked, pointing at the trailer wall. Circling the command PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD were a dozen gigantic bloodshot eyes, more scary, all-seeing, and all-knowing than even the eyes of his Aunt Grace, who claimed to have an extra set in the back of her head.
“Sure thing,” said Mr. Wertz. He gave them a knowing wink: “So what do you want to see next?”
“Blood, blood!” Timmy squealed.
Mr. Wertz tousled the little ghoul’s hair and threw him in the air. “You got it.” He trooped his charges up front, lifted the tent flap, and hustled them into the sanctuary of horrors. Ahead stretched a wide centre aisle, flanked by twenty rows of benches and chairs, which led to a platform with a pulpit on its left and a piano on its right. Above the stage, shards of light entered where brains had once been blasted out.
Timmy was beside himself. He imagined naked people running back and forth, dodging bullets like mechanical ducks in a penny arcade. Bang! Bang! AAAH!!! Bang! Bang! AAAH!!!
What he loved most were the gore stains radiating from each