Boyfriend from Hell Read Free Page A

Ronnie observed, most were Caucasian. The worshippers wore unfashionable clothing, several men in work shoes, giving her the impression of a predominantly working-class crowd.
    She waited for the stragglers to enter and approached the door. She was confronted by a bone-thin man of five feet six in a black suit, black tie, black shirt, and black shoes. The blackness of his appearance was broken by the man’s complexion, nearly ghostly white. Ronnie detected makeup.
    “What do you want?”
    “I’m Veronica Delaney. I’m here at the invitation of Mr. Cummings.”
    “Last row. No tape recording. No pictures.”
    “I’m going to take notes. That’s what I’m here for.”
    “Do it quietly.” And he stepped aside allowing her to pass.
    The interior of the church was painted black, the space illuminated by candelabras with glowing black candles mounted along the side walls. The worshippers were sitting in pews. Randall Cummings, their leader, stepped to an altar, an imposing six feet two, wearing a hooded black robe, and she amused herself by wondering if he might be wearing black underwear with little Calvin Klein logos. He peered at the congregants before speaking. His face was elegant from what she could see of it, with a long, thin nose. The voice, as on the phone, was soft, resonant, Middle Atlantic announcer style. No, better than that, she decided, good enough for a voice-over on a PBS nature special on seabirds. She was having difficulty taking this seriously, it was so Halloween to her.
    “My fellow worshippers, it was a good week for the forces of evil. But then it always is. And yet, does that translate into your everyday lives? In hard cash? In business opportunities? In a level playing field for people such as yourselves who are not the entitled heads of corporations, the CEOs who get rich on the backs of those who do the work, the Wall Street boys in their private jets and their weekend houses and their fancy boats and their fancy cars, and their lawyers in their weekend houses and fancy cars with their mistresses and lovers, in a system where the rich get richer and the hardworking work harder?”
    In college she had taken a course on modern political movements and as she listened she thought it could have been an updated Socialist Party speech by Eugene V. Debs from 1920.
    “But it doesn’t have to be thus,” as he began to depart from Debs. “You can channel a force greater than all the forces on earth—and do unto others before they do unto you. You can level that playing field. You can be allied with the power of darkness, which exists, as you know. As you all know.”
    The ghostly doorman wheeled out a cart with a television set attached to a DVD player, flipping it on with a remote. A fast-cutting series of images flashed on the screen, brutal images: war scenes, concentration camp scenes, American GIs dead in the streets of Iraq, dead or malnourished African children, crime scenes, an unremitting montage of civilization’s inhumanities, the worst of Mankind, torture scenes, lynchings, floggings; and on the bottom of the screen, flashing repetitively, a crude attempt at subliminal messaging, the words: “Satan lives … Satan lives … Satan lives.” She made a note for herself on the use of the footage for proselytizing—“unconscionable.”
    “Is there any question in your minds,” Cummings said, as the five-minute film came to an end, “that evil—pure, constant evil—exists on this earth? It didn’t just get here. It didn’t just show up one night. It is the handiwork of the Prince of Darkness, whose power we are here to harness. And you will.”
    Cummings then encouraged participation, for people to stand and bear witness to the injustices done to them that week, a litany of slights at checkout counters, work settings, parking spaces, doctors’ offices. The injustices, she noted, could easily have been from a Larry David routine on Curb Your Enthusiasm. But these people were in