One day, as I was passing through Lebanon, I came across a crowd at Swine Corners. On the NW corner, standing on a little bandwagon, stood a rather plainly dressed man. He sported a black ribbon tie, starched white shirt, black cut-away morning coat and black trousers. I assume he wore black boots, for the heads of his listeners obscured my vision. Those gathered about him in amphitheatre fashion wore checked cotton shirts and jeans or bib overalls and browned boots.
I asked one of the gathered, “Who’s that speaking?”
He looked me up and down and turned back to his listening. “That’s the preacher, Brother Ron Berptoast.”
“What’s he talking about?”
“He’s impartin’ his vision.”
“What did he envision? God?”
The man turned full around and looked unwaveringly into my face. “We don’t cotton to no ridicule in these here parts. Brother Berptoast is serious business.” And he turned away again.
I decided I would step back and observe the goings-on from the opposite corner. There was a wooden bench there and my legs ached, felt rubbery. I looked up at the sky—glaring blue. I sat, hoping a breeze would come along. My shirt was already wet and salt stained at the pits.
“And it behooved me to pass along my vision, my puissance, my revelation to you, my fellow men.” He fetched his handkerchief from his coat breast pocket and touched his mouth with it. “I say to you. . .I was stranded at the entrance to the chapel when it came upon me. Descended upon me in a bright steel blue flash like the lightning that Paul in the desert saw before his vision. I was blinded, mindless and senseless, to all but the picture put into me from above. I was touched, I say. Touched by the Holiest of Holies.” He dabbed at his upper lip with his sparkling white hanky. The ring on his little finger gleamed too. “And I am here to tell it to you all, that you, too, might know.” He paused. His voice lowered in register. “It was late in the evening. In the gloaming when the world is more than it is. A chariot appeared to me. Before me. A chariot! In this here day and age. There was no one around. It was a dark chariot. Drawn by eight milk white steeds. Driven by a tall dark stranger with fire in his eyes. Flashing from his dark black eyes. A slightly askew smile on his thin lips. I was awed. I trembled with fear and trepidation. A complexion darker—I say, darker than any man I have ever seen stared out at me from an atmosphere so hot and suffocating that I knew he was a being from another realm. And following this chariot was a host, a multitude of dark liveries mounted on dark steeds that stood a full 21 hands high. I trembled in my bones. My shoes became loose on my feet. My hair stood on end to rival the silky flowing mass of the charioteer’s black locks.” Brother Berptoast mopped his brow. “Appreciating my fear and over-awedness, he spoke to me. He spoke to me the words that make my appearance before you a reality. A necessity.” Pause. “He said, step upon my chariot, human, and I shall show you wonders beyond all calculation. And do you know? Do you know my crazed feet carried me up upon that dark chariot and stood joyous as a baby’s first steps next that raven stranger. Why in my fear and trembling had I done such a thing? Lord, lord, lord, there was a power here I did not understand. A power greater than myself. There was naught I could do but follow.” Brother Ron raised his hanky high and then pointed it directly at his audience. “I had no power to refuse! And before I was aware, I found I was in the chariot proceeding through the thick sulfurous air at a speed I dare not calculate. Onward we went. Onward and upward. Onward with the rapidity and ease of the wind until we stopped before a door in the High Street of Climax. Nary a word spoke my deep, dark companion. There was a crowd of people in the street. But no notice did they take of my caliginous caravan with its extraordinary equipage. Was I then invisible? It would have been difficult to miss the entourage and chariot from which I alighted—for I knew this was the place. The place I should get off. The place that was intended for me. Yet no one saw!” Brother Berptoast jabbed the air with each insistent word. I shifted my position. “The house at which we sopped appeared to be a shop. I do not know what kind of shop. I could see no sign. I also do not remember ever having seen a shop in this place before. When the dark stranger ushered me in, I was confronted by a vast half-ruined palace. Far in excess of what that common little shop door could have realized. I was in awe of the space. The high ceilings disappeared into the vague sky—if sky it was, for my eyes could not see so high. Intricate yet heavy columns evenly spaced about like a cathedral. Huge pillars of marble. And windows. . .windows of cut glass and pointed gothic arches from which no light emanated. But dark flashes of lightning rose up behind them illuminating the walls of intricately woven stone that went on and on. . .” Brother Berptoast let his hand and his gaze move on and on. I crossed my legs. “Room after room my mysterious mentor led me, pausing only to urge my befuddled feet onward. What did these rooms look like? I no longer remember but they were numberless. Numberless as the rooms in God’s mansion. But. . .I do remember that last room. That room was more cave-like than the rest. Its walls less finished. Yet with all the dancing shadows from the firelight, great bleeding torches, I could not be sure. The tall dark stranger stopped. And gestured. And there before me sat a senate of ghosts debating on the progress of the plague. Yes! That same plague that ravishes our land today! And around the edges of this grand cavern, illuminated by garish bouts of twisted lightning, I saw gibbering and chattering skeletons running about. Running lasciviously after each other. Playing leap-frog. I shrank into myself. I did not belong here. My legs trembled and became rooted to the spot as my will strove to drive me onward. Escape! Escape! My inner voice roared at me. But I could not move. . .until the man bid me proceed beyond these squabbling ghosts into a wild, uncultivated plot of ground out of which rose up a black rock as smooth as—there is nothing so smooth.” I took a drink of water. Brother Berptoast wiped around his face, his eyes round and filled with wonder. “Down the walls of this cavern oozed and drooled water. A water that sparkled a yellow-green. This is my water, the darksome man said, pointing with a long finger. A very long finger with a very long blue-black fingernail. Vin invitae! He laughed. His lips pulled back to reveal long white fang-like teeth, the incisors creasing his lower lips. A grimace from out of which blew the mirthless laugher and a stench that only the brimstone of hell could produce. My knees went weak. I stepped back, reaching out to catch my balance. Don’t touch! he shouted at me. His voice rang off the walls. I covered my ears.” Brother Berptoast covered his ears. “The ringing bugged my eyes out.” Brother Ron did so. “I could not tolerate the tintinnabulation. I thought my mind would come squeezing out my ears. My nose. My open gaping mouth.” Brother Berptoast paused, filling the silence with his grimacing. I looked up at the sky and was immediately blinded. When I returned to Brother Berptoast’s bathos, he was a gyrating ghost in a tarnished halo. As he turned blue, he sucked in a great gasping breath and raised his hands to the sky. “Never in the world had I heard such a concatenation. I tried to plead my cause to the Lord. . .the bleating risibility ceased. I was enveloped in silence, silence that took my breath away. I looked at my Cimmerian companion—I didn’t want to! Lord help me, I did not want to! And yet I could not but look at him.” Brother Berptoast looked, handkerchief at his mouth. “His finger shot out, pointing to the ground. My gaze followed.” He followed his own trembling finger. “And. . .Lord help me! It was no longer stone but earth! The Earth. The ground beneath your feet. And that poison sucked itself into that earth. My earth. I saw it sinking into the world and polluting all the life therein. All the life upon it. And its noxious fumes rose up like highway heat mirage and choked the life out of the birds and the bees and they fell to the putrid earth and were consumed. And I saw this venomous liquid insinuate itself into the very wells and springs of the city making the water unfit to drink. By the Lord above I was struck dumb. . .the people were drinking of this polluted water. They knew not what they did. And they paid the price. I saw their walking corpses green and pus-filled bursting their humanity and falling empty to the ground.” I took a drink. “After seeing all this, the Stygian stranger showed me into yet a further room. What a marvelous, glorious chamber it was! Gilt and gold everywhere. My eyes were struck dumb from the brilliance. Piles. Piles and piles. Pile upon pile of rubies and pearls and sapphires and diamonds rose up before me. The floor was strewn with semi-precious stones. Once again his finger shot out, pointing at each and every stack of gems. These, he breathed, these are all yours, wealth beyond imagination. . .if you but do two things. I looked up into his imposing, hypnotic eyes. You must kneel to me and worship me. And you must go about the land and smear this pestiferous salve on all the doors I tell you.” Brother Ron Berptoast paused. He let the power of the moment seep into his by now bewitched spectators and I shifted my position. The preacher began again in a soft voice. “I knew then that this black spectre was Satan. And somehow. . .somehow the Lord gave me strength to refuse this primordial bribe.” Preacher Ron’s voice rent the air and I leaned forward. “Lightning flashed from his eyes! A gurgling, growling roar rose up out of him! He scowled down at me. His fingers clawed the air. And a loud clap of thunder burst over his head!” Brother Berptoast thundered, hands furiously tearing at the air. His listeners jumped. I sat up straight, grasping my water bottle. And then the preacher settled himself, wiping the spit from about his lips. Dabbing at his eyes. “And then. . .and then I found myself standing on the steps of the chapel. Alone.”
I took to following Preacher Ron Berptoast as he toured the country. He repeated his vision day after day. Without variation. Word for word. And all the populace became firm believers in his truth—that the scourge upon the land was due to the devil. As everyone wished to root out the devil, people searched high and low for his mysterious house. The police became involved. The Reserves. The military. Yet the demon of the pestilence could not be found. Nor the hall of ghosts. Nor the poisonous fountain. But the minds of the people were so imbued with Brother Berptoast’s idea that scores of witnesses, half-crazed by disease, came forward to swear that they too had seen the diabolical stranger, heard his chariot clattering down the street at the head of eight milk white steeds and a teeming dark multitude of liveries, dancing skeletons and arguing ghosts. Some even heard the thunder of his accursed laughter. And they’d point out this house or that, this person or that.
Then one day, Brother Ron Berptoast stepped up on his little bandwagon and told of another vision he had had.
Tags: kansas, preaching, sam brownback, secor
