Daren Dean

Mercury in Retrograde 51

Royal

They began to call him The Boy of God throughout Kingdom County. Theron Beecher told him his own daddy had been a preacher too and he took to driving Royal to nursing homes, hospitals, prayer meetings, and Church services of various denominations from Baptists, Church of Christ, Assembly of God, Holiness, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Catholics, and Methodists, and a host of unaffiliated Churches that believed in the power of the Holy Ghost. There were others who wanted his services. They took up offerings and everything from checks, cash, bicentennial quarters, and fifty cent pieces and a few buffalo nickles piled into the plates, baskets, and hats. Fairmont was the only place that did not want him to come and do healings at first. Theron said that had happened to Jesus too: A prophet is not accepted in his own hometown.

His Mama, Lurlene, was most shocked of everyone. She thought he was bound to get into trouble, being a Scofield by blood. She tried to think of an explanation for his gift by remembering old family members. Had any of them been religious? Not that she could remember. Theron tried to tell her that it was just God’s grace. He worked in mysterious ways. That kind of thing. It didn’t stop her from calling family up and asking if they could recall family who had been a preacher. There had been a Methodist exhorter way back, but no direct link and that troubled her thinking.

“Can I speak to the boy of God?” a voice asked drawled in the receiver.

“It depends,” said Lurlene the phone cocked in the crook of her neck. “Who is this?”

“Lurlene?”

“Yes,” she said.

“This is Brother Pappy Cordell down at Redeemer Pentecostal, how are you?”

“Just fine.”

“You still at the shoe factory?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Good, good,” Brother Pappy said. “I was hoping that this coming Sunday Royal could come down to Redeemer and heal folks. We’re planning an all day event. We’ve got a guest evangelist, Reverend Owen Porter, maybe you heard of him? He’s done some radio broadcasts and local television down South. Then we’ve got a gospel quartet and a singing group called The Family that sings popular style music. Everyone in the Church is making food to bring. It will be a real down-home event. Anyway, I thought it would be nice if Royal could come down and pray for some folks.”

“The boy of God?”

“That’s what they’re starting to call him,” Brother Pappy said. “Theron Beecher told me the boy’s got the power of healing from God. I believe something what that Theron tells me. His own daddy was a preacher. Led me to the Lord himself. Maybe it skipped a generation, and rubbed off on Royal instead of Theron. I don’t know. But I’ve heard he’s been praying for folks right and left. Healing has taken place. The wonder working power of God . . .”

A faint rumbling in the distance outside coming from the northeast shook the house.

“Royal,” Lurlene said. “Goes down to the hospital with Mr. Toomey and visits with folks. Takes them fruit baskets from the Food Pantry. Hands out leaflets on the street. But I don’t see how he could go from being a normal boy . . . to the boy of God just like that.”

“Of course,” Brother Pappy said. “We will take up an offering for y’all. Times is tough and a little something extra always comes in handy. It’s promising to be a huge event.”

“You’re going to give Royal money to pray for folks?”

“Yes ma’am,” Brother Pappy said. “A love offering.”

“What time do you want him there?”

The Church was full to capacity. Brother Pappy told him it was an attendance record. Redeemer was an old Methodist church, white with an ancient graveyard out back that had graves from before the Civil War. The parking lot was full. Their were station wagons, pickups, Sedans, and even a few hotrods parked along the gravel road on either side of the road. Souls were being won for Christ. It might go on for a week like a revival.

The Church sang the Old Rugged Cross and He’s the Savior of My Soul.

“Revival is what the Church needs,” Revered Owen Porter said from the pulpit. “Can I get an A-men?”

“Amen,” said the people.

“We got to pray for revival,” he said jumping in the air to land on the little stage like a human exclamation point. “But now we’ve got a special treat for you. No revival can be complete without healing! We are a people who believe in signs and wonders, speaking in tongues, and the power of the Holy Ghost! Amen? Amen! There’s a young man I want to introduce you to. He’s a local boy! The Lord has placed a special anointing on his life,

Royal Scofield. The boy of God!”

“Hallelujah!” a row of black women in their bright purples, yellows, and blues called out from the front in unison like a chorus.

Royal came out of a small room in the back that went to the baptismal and downstairs to the Sunday School classes and onto the little stage. He was small for his age and had to stand in front of the podium. Children leaned precariously over the railing on the balcony up above and called out his name. A mass of people everywhere he looked. Even the aisle had folks sitting and standing, some with crutches leaned against the pews, and young and old had hope in their eyes. The belief that the power of God flowed through him and that he could deliver healing to them. The boy had never spoke to a crowd so large before, but he could feel the ripples of electricity bouncing off of them, projected toward him with faith, hope, and love. Brother Pappy coached him on a few appropriate things to say, but now it was difficult to remember his own name.

“Brothers and sisters,” Royal said. “I’m so glad y’all came out to praise God. I just feel like I found my family, like I belong to something greater than anything I could ever hope for. The family of God. The Lord gave me this gift, gift of healing. It’s part of the five-fold ministry. Any that has need can come up and we’ll pray for him and that’s that. You don’t owe nobody nothing. If you want to talk to someone about accepting Jesus as your savior, well, you can do that too. If you just want healing, then that’s what God’s here for. He’ll do it too, because He love’s you more than anyone else can. Even loves you more than you’re own family!”

“Preach it,” Mama Horne said. “Preach it--boy of God!”

“I know some of you see me,” Royal said. “And say that boy’s a Scofield. Them Scofield’s are bad news. Well, all I can tell you is yes it’s true that I’m a Scofield but I’ve been saved and washed in the blood of the lamb--have you--have you?” He pointed his finger out at the audience and people began to answer him as individuals. Some said they had with great emphasis, bobbing their head like they were images on a 16 mm film without sound and others shaking their head and crying because they hadn’t been saved and hoped to be soon, because the evangelist had spoken of the coming seven year Tribulation.

“When you been saved,” Royal’s voice rose and fell with a rhythm, a cadence. “You don’t have to worry about your old sins. God picked up a big eraser and erased your sins off his chalkboard. There’s no condemnation in Christ! That’s what Brother Pappy preaches.

Your sins have been washed away in the Sea of Nonremembrance! Amen?”

“Amen,” said the people.

“So I want you to line up in these aisles,” Royal said. “There’s no hurry. Don’t rush. I’ll be here until I have prayed for every last one of y’all. But the main thing you need today is Faith. Bring your faith up here and you will get the healing you want. There was the Sabbath healing of the withered hand; the spitting into the eyes of the man at Bethsaida; the woman at Canaan whose daughter was a rid of a Devil--and do you know what these events had in common? Do you? Faith. Don’t tell me you ain’t got it, because you got it in spades! Each has been given his portion of faith. Now come up here and claim your healing!”

The people surged forward for prayer. Hands pushed against backs. A domino effect happened here and there as people fell forward on their knees or the backs of those before them. The piano player began to play some soothing music as her own crutch clattered to the floor. An elderly man with alzheimers was prayed for to shouts of Hallelujah! A little girl with blond hair and thick glasses was prayed over that God might restore her vision. A man with a missing arm wanted to be made whole again “in spirit” he said. The people bent in a line, wrapping around the Church. There were folks back up into the foyer. Through the windows more cars were driving by and entire families were making their way to Redeemer in hopes that the boy of God could touch each of them too. Even folks without actual physical problems hoped the boy would touch them and bring them peace they had only found in memories of childhood, in the arms of a lover, under the influence of alcohol or drugs from the street or prescription. The boy they knew, they heard, had something to offer all through his gift.

Royal looked out over the crowd and thought oh what an awesome God as it seemed everyone he had ever known was there. At one time in his life, Fairmont and Kingdom County were as much as there was ever going to be--it was the world in his mind. Theron stood in the far aisle to his right pressed against the wall his hand at the elbow of an elderly woman in an carroty pantsuit with a new red rinse in her hair. Royal’s Mama sat on the front row as proud as she could be of her son, but still mystified somehow that all of this could be happening to her son.

A man, about his father’s age, stepped forward and the keys at his belt loop jingled as he kneeled in front of Royal. He needed Jesus in his life and he had to quit drinking or the doctor said he would die. He said his name was Dan and he knew he could not quit the drink on his own.

“Spirit of alcohol,” Royal called out, one hand on the crown of the man’s head and the other raised to heaven. “I bind you up and cast you out in the name of Jesus!” Dan slumped backward and a deacon was there to catch him and lay him down on the stage floor. He was covered with a little blanket. It looked like a battlefield. Fallen bodies were everywhere. Hands were raised. Women murmured as though in fitful sleep.

Royal had to move off the stage and onto the floor in front of the first row where people were mashed together like penned cattle waiting for the branding iron. Brother Pappy’s hand was at his elbow as he moved down the aisles speaking to one and then another. He lost all perspective of time. Sparrell McPheeters stood before him but refused to say what he needed prayer for. Said it was between him and God. He and Brother Pappy prayed for the old man who self-consciously kept thrusting out his lower dentures and sucking them back in.

The sun sent clotted dancing motes through the stained windows. A familiar man appeared down the throng of people in the aisle out the doorway. The doors were thrust open. A body filled the entrance and folks moved back away from him. Voices continued to pray but many fell silent as the man walked down the aisle wearing a gunbelt, an empty holster slapping against his thigh. The smell of whiskey wafted through the crowd. Royal knew the odor too intimately, he associated his father with alcohol the way some might think of a cologne and a particular person. He grew afraid, but not for himself. He feared his Daddy might cause a scene in the house of God or that he would hurt someone or worse yet--hurt their faith through his actions. Brother Pappy stepped between Merle and Royal and the boy became aware of how muscular these two men were and how something in Brother Pappy’s nature exuded a kind of propensity for violence even if it was in past, he could not say the same about his Daddy.

“Royal,” Merle said, looking beyond Brother Pappy. “I don’t want no trouble. Ain’t trying to make trouble. I know I been a bad Daddy. I just wanted to see you today. Wanted to see what you do. What they say God’s doing in your life. I ain’t religious, but I wanted you to know . . . I’m here. I’m still here . . .”

Brother Pappy relaxed and stepped out of the way.

Royal went to his daddy and felt the strong arms enfold him. He could not remember being hugged or even touched by his father since he was a small child. It was a comforting feeling. It hit him now, at this moment, that the last several weeks he had prayed for so many people and here was all he needed. No special prayer. No miraculous event. He simply needed the love of those who were meant to care about him, his family and blood, and he feared it was a temporary respite. A feeling that might not last, but perhaps it would. The piano player struck up notes for a chorus that talked about the family of God and the people from Redeemer Pentecostal congregation began to sing it and sway together. Tears streamed down Merle’s leathery face and Royal marveled at the tears as much as if they had been tears of blood.

May 10, 2010