As he sat behind his desk in his high-backed chair, Big Jim took the ball from its cradle and began tossing it from hand to hand. It was a fine thing to toss, especially when you were a little upset: nice and heavy, the golden seams smacking comfortably against your palms. Big Jim sometimes wondered what it would be like to have a solid gold ball. Perhaps he would look into that when this Dome business was over.
Coggins seated himself on the other side of the desk, in the client's chair. The supplicants chair. Which was where Big Jim wanted him. The Reverend's eyes went back and forth like the eyes of a man watching a tennis match. Or maybe a hypnotist's crystal.
'Now what's this all about, Lester? Fill me in. But let's keep it short, shall we? I need to get some sleep. Got a lot to do tomorrow.'
'Will you pray with me first, Jim?'
Big Jim smiled. It was the fierce one, although not turned up to maximum chill. At least not yet. 'Why don't you fill me in before we do that? I like to know what I'm praying about before I get kneebound.'
Lester did not keep it short, but Big Jim hardly noticed. He listened with growing dismay that was close to horror. The Reverend's narrative was disjointed and peppered with Biblical quotations, but the gist was clear: he had decided that their little business had displeased the Lord enough for Him to clap a big glass bowl over the whole town. Lester had prayed on what to do about this, scourging himself as he did so (the scourging might have been metaphorical - Big Jim certainly hoped so), and the Lord had led him to some Bible verse about madness, blindness, smiting, etc., etc.
'The Lord said he would shew me a sign, and - '
'Shoe?' Big Jim raised his tufted eyebrows.
Lester ignored him and plunged on, sweating like a man with malaria, his eyes still following the golden ball. Back... and forth.
'It was like when I was a teenager and I used to come in my bed.'
'Les, that's... a little too much information.' Tossing the ball from hand to hand.
'God said He would shew me blindness, but not my blindness. And this afternoon, out in that field, He did! Didn't he?'
'Well, I guess that's one interpretation - '
'No!' Coggins leaped to his feet. He began to walk in a circle on the rug, his Bible in one hand. With the other he tugged at his hair. 'God said that when I saw that sign, I had to tell my congregation exactly what you'd been up to - '
'Just me?' Big Jim asked. He did so in a meditative voice. He was tossing the ball from hand to hand a little faster now. Smack. Smack. Smack. Back and forth against palms that were fleshy but still hard.
'No,' Lester said in a kind of groan. He paced faster now, no longer looking at the ball. He was waving the Bible with the hand not busy trying to tear his hair out by the roots. He did the same thing in the pulpit sometimes, when he really got going. That stuff was all right in church, but here it was just plain infuriating. 'It was you and me and Roger Kalian, the Bowie brothers and...' He lowered his voice. 'And that other one. The Chef. I think that man's crazy. If he wasn't when he started last spring, he sure is now.'
Look who's talking, little buddy, Big Jim thought.
'We're all involved, but it's you and I who have to confess, Jim. That's what the Lord told me. That's what the boy's blindness meant; it's what he died for. We'll confess, and we'll burn that Barn of Satan behind the church. Then God will let us go.'
'You'll go, all right, Lester. Straight to Shawshank State Prison.'
'I will take the punishment God metes out. And gladly'
'And me? Andy Sanders?The Bowie brothers? And Roger Killian! He's got I think nine kids to support! What if we're not so glad, Lester?'
'I can't help that.' Now Lester began to whack himself on the shoulders with his Bible. Back and forth; first one side and then the other. Big Jim found himself synchronizing his tosses of the golden baseball to the preacher's blows. W\iack... and smack. Whack... and smack. Whack... and smack. 'It's sad about the Killian children, of course, but... Exodus twenty, verse five: "For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." We have to bow to that. We have to clean out this chancre however much it may hurt; make right what we have made wrong. That means confession and purification. Purification by fire.'
Big Jim raised the hand not currently holding the gold baseball. 'Whoa, whoa, whoa. Think about what you're saying. This town depends on me - and you, of course - in ordinary times, but in times of crisis, it needs us.' He stood up, pushing his chair back. This had been a long and terrible day, he was tired, and now this. It made a man angry.
'We have sinned.' Coggins spoke stubbornly, still whacking himself with his Bible. As if he thought treating God's Holy Book like that was perfectly okay.
'What we did, Les, was keep thousands of kids from starving in Africa. We even paid to treat their hellish diseases. We also built you a new church and the most powerful Christian radio station in the northeast.'
'And lined our own pockets, don't forget that!' Coggins shrilled. This time he smacked himself full in the face with the Good Book. A thread of blood seeped from one nostril. 'Lined em with filthy dope-money!' He smacked himself again. 'And Jesus's radio station is being run by a lunatic who cooks the poison that children put into their veins!'
'Actually, I think most of them smoke it.'
'Is that supposed to be funny?'
Big Jim came around the desk. His temples were throbbing and a bricklike flush was rising in his cheeks. Yet he tried once more, speaking softly, as if to a child doing a tantrum. 'Lester, the town needs my leadership. If you go opening your gob, I won't be able to provide that leadership. Not that anyone will believe you - '
'They'll all believe!' Coggins cried. 'When they see the devil's workshop I've let you run behind my church, they'll all believe! And Jim - don't you see - once the sin is out... once the sore's been cleansed... God will remove His barrier! The crisis will end! They won't need your leadership!'