Read Online Kinflicks by Lisa Alther - Free Book Online

play ball.” We were all hanging on the edges of our bleachers waiting for the punch line. “Jesus came to me! Yes, he did! He come to me and He says, ‘Brother Buck, don’t you fret none, son. We’re gonna clean out the temple of your soul, buddy, that body of yours whose pleasures you set so much store by. The devil has been lyin’ in wait for you, brother, behind them rhinestone pasties. But ah got plans for you on mah team, fella!’
    â€œAnd that’s why ah’m here tonight, friends, Brother Buck right here in — ah — here with all you fine people tonight in — uh — this lovely town of — uh -.” He turned around quickly to the clerical-collared men on the stage behind him. Then he turned back around and said casually, “Here in Hullsport, Tennessee. Yes, ah’m here to let you all in on a li’l ole secret.”
    Joe Bob and I strained forward in our seats, since all the world loves a secret. As we did so, our thighs rubbed together. I hastily moved my legs to one side — and bumped into the thighs of the strange boy next to me. I appeared to have no choice but to allow my left thigh to nestle up against Joe Bob’s muscled right one. We sat rigid, pretending not to notice, as Brother Buck told us his secret in a voice that boomed to the rafters: “You don’t have to die, friends!”
    He paused until the echo faded, then continued in a shout: “That body you’re abusin’, buddy, with your liquor and your lusts, that body,” he roared, then instantly dropped his voice almost to a whisper so that the audience strained forward as one to hear him, “is the sanctuary of your soul.” He stopped, sweat glistening on his forehead beneath his light brown crew cut. “Your soul!” he shouted again, so that everyone sat back, startled. “The Bible says, ‘Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God? Ye are not your own.”’
    By now Joe Bob’s and my thighs were pressed together tightly and were generating hot secrets within our respective soul sanctuaries.
    Suddenly Brother Buck burst into the feverish pitch of revival preaching. It was like a thunderstorm finally breaking after hours of black clouds amassing. “Ah came here to save souls ! Ah came here to share with you mah joy in the Lord ! Yes, Jesus!” Brother Buck could have been quoting stock prices now and none of us would have noticed.
    â€œâ€˜The Lord is mah Shepherd ! Ah shall not want!’ Yes! The Lord says, He says in that last awful day of reckonin’, brothers, on that day when your lungs fill up with blood, yes, and you can’t call out to no one to come hep you! On that day, friends, when the film of death draws acrost your eyes and you can’t see the loved ones around you! Yes! On that day, friends, when your ears are roarin’ with the sound of your own organs collapsin’ inside you! Yes! On that day, oh dear God that day, when your teeth won’t stop chatterin’ from fear, and your bones turn to jelly and your legs collapse underneath you! Oh, friends! That day when your precious body is crumblin’ into dust and swirlin’ away! Yes! ‘Behold!’ Isaiah says. ‘Behold the Lord maketh the earth empty.’ Yes! ‘And wastes it, and turns it upside down, and scatters abroad the inhabitants thereof!’ Oh yes, sweet Jesus! ‘The land shall be utterly spoiled,’ Isaiah says, ‘for the earth is defiled under the inhabitants thereof!’ Yes, praise God!”
    The emotional climate in the auditorium was rising now, particularly in the immediate vicinity of Joe Bob and me. Our thighs were positively aglow. People in the audience were starting to shout back at Brother Buck: “Yes, Jesus!” “Praise God!”
    â€œThink about it,” he invited us, suddenly quiet. He was playing us as