The Talisman

ass anytime you can’t roll it down the alley or kick it in the air, buddy-roo,’ Rudolph said, flicking his eyes lazily over Singer. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
    Singer looked at him, lips first trembling, then writhing, then pushing together hard.
    He suddenly turned around. ‘Night-chapel!’ he shouted furiously. ‘Night-chapel, come on, let’s go, get those tables cleared and let’s get up the hall, we’re late! Night-chapel!’
    5
    The boys trooped down a narrow staircase lit by naked bulbs enclosed in wire mesh. The walls were dank plaster, and Jack didn’t like the way Wolf’s eyeballs were rolling.
    After that, the cellar chapel was a surprise. Most of the downstairs area – which was considerable – had been converted into a spare, modern chapel. The air down here was good – not too warm, not too cold. And fresh. Jack could hear the whispering of convection units somewhere near. There were five pews split by a central aisle, leading up to a dais with a lectern and a simple wooden cross hung on a purple velvet backdrop.
    Somewhere, an organ was playing.
    The boys filed quietly into the pews. The microphone on the lectern had a large, professional-looking baffle on the end of it. Jack had been in plenty of studio sound-rooms with his mother, often sitting patiently by and reading a book or doing his homework assignments while she did TV overdubs or looped unclear dialogue, and he knew that sort of baffle was meant to keep the speaker from ‘popping’ the mike. He thought it a strange thing to see in the chapel of a religious boarding home for wayward boys. Two video cameras stood at either side of the lectern, one to catch Sunlight Gardener’s right profile, the other to catch his left. Neither was turned on this evening. There were heavy purple draperies on the walls. On the right, they were unbroken. Set into the left wall, however, was a glass rectangle. Jack could see Casey crouched over an extremely professional-looking soundboard, reel-to-reel tape recorder close to his right hand. As Jack watched, Casey grabbed a pair of cans from the board and slipped them over his ears.
    Jack looked up and saw hardwood beams rising in a series of six modest arches. Between them was drilled white composition board . . . sound-proofing. The place looked like a chapel, but it was a very efficient combination-TV-and-radio studio. Jack suddenly thought of Jimmy Swaggart, Rex Humbard, Jack Van Impe.
    Folks, just lay yo hand on yo television set, and you gone be HEALED!!!
    He suddenly felt like screaming with laughter.
    A small door to the left of the podium opened, and Sunlight Gardener stepped out. He was dressed in white from head to toe, and Jack saw expressions varying from exaltation to outright adoration on the faces of many of the boys, but Jack again had to restrain himself from a wild laughing-spree. The vision in white approaching the lectern reminded him of a series of commercials he had seen as a very young child.
    He thought Sunlight Gardener looked like the Man from Glad.
    Wolf turned toward him and whispered hoarsely, ‘What’s the matter, Jack? You smell like something’s really funny.’
    Jack snorted so hard into the hand cupped over his mouth that he blew colorless snot all over his fingers.
    Sunlight Gardener, his face glowing with ruddy good health, turned the pages of the great Bible on the lectern, apparently lost in deepest meditation. Jack saw the glowering, scorched-earth landscape of Heck Bast’s face, the narrow, suspicious face of Sonny Singer. He sobered up in a hurry.
    In the glass booth, Casey was sitting up, watching Gardener alertly. And as Gardener raised his handsome face from his Bible and fastened his cloudy, dreaming, and utterly insane eyes upon his congregation, Casey flipped a switch. The reels of the big tape recorder began to turn.
    6
    ‘Fret not thyself because of evildoers,’
    said Sunlight Gardener. His voice was low, musical, thoughtful.
    ‘Neither be thou envious against
    the workers of iniquity.
    For they shall soon be cut down like the grass,
    and wither as the green herb.
    Trust in the Lord, and do good;
    so shalt thou dwell in the Territories –’
    (Jack Sawyer felt his heart take a nasty, leaping turn in his chest)
    ‘– and verily thou shalt be fed.
    Delight thyself also in the Lord;
    and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
    Commit thy way unto the Lord;
    trust also in him;
    and he shall bring it to pass . . .
    Cease from