Read Online Kinflicks by Lisa Alther - Free Book Online Page A

though we were hooked fish, giving us emotional slack now in order to reel us in more quickly later. “You’ve broken trainin’ all your life. Your body’s a stinkin’ sewer of ever vile corruption you can name. Your team has lost the game because you’re all just reekin’ with sin. You’re slouchin’ toward the dressin’ room thinkin’ bout the hot shower that’s gonna feel so great on your bruised body. But as you walk into the locker room, friends, you hear your teammates weepin’ and howlin’ with anguish.
    â€œWhat’s waitin’ for you there in your dressin’ room, friends? Do you know? Let’s listen to the Bible and see,” he suggested, holding up a black book as though fading back to pass it into the audience. Flipping through it nonchalantly, he stopped and read slowly, “‘Behold,’ Isaiah says, ‘the Lord will come with fire, and his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.’”
    His tempo and pitch were picking up again. “‘The people shall be as the burnings of lime, as thorns cut up shall they be burnt in the fire,’ says Isaiah. Oh dear God! ‘Ah will tread them in mine anger!’ Yes! ‘Ah will trample them in mah fury!’ Yes! ‘Their blood shall be sprinkled upon mah garments, and ah will stain all my raiment!’ Oh sweet Jesus! ‘They shall go forth, friends, yes, and they shall look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me,’ says the Lord. ‘Their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched!’ No! ‘And they shall be an abhorrin’ unto all flesh!’ Oh woe! Woe! Listen to this from Corinthians, brothers and sisters, ah beg of you! ‘Be not deceived: neither fornicators, no, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves, shall inherit the kingdom of God! The body is not for fornication but for the Lord!’ Yes, praise Jesus! ‘Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?’ Know ye not? ‘Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid,’ says Corinthians! Rather, ‘Flee fornication!’”
    Joe Bob and I were unable to sit still. Blood was throbbing in my thigh along the area where it contacted Joe Bob’s. The entire audience was squirming. If Brother Buck had told us all to go burn down the Major’s munitions factory, we probably would have.
    Sweat was dripping from Brother Buck’s face as though he had been standing under a shower. “On that horrible last day, friends, when the losin’ team is howlin’ in the locker room, what about the winnin’ team? What happens to them, do you think? ‘We need not fear,’ says the Psalm, ‘though the earth be moved, and though the hills be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof rage and swell,’ friends; ‘though the mountains shake at the tempest. We need not fear.’ We need not fear!” he announced, his face expressing delighted astonishment through its layer of sweat. “‘Be not afraid of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do!’
    â€œAnd so Brother Buck pleads with you tonight, folks: Turn your back on the corruption of this vile and hateful world, and purify yourself to be worthy of the next. Yes! It’s not too late to swap teams if you start followin’ trainin’ tonight. ‘Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. But when the corruptible shall have put on incorruption, the mortal shall have put on immortality.’
    â€œDo it tonight, friends. Brother Buck begs you. He pleads with you from the depths of his heart. Put on incorruption. Put it on tonight. ‘Cause then only shall be brought to pass the sayin’ that is