The Evangelists
The Evangelists:
A treatment for a new COPS-style reality television program
Scene i.
Cue theme music: “This is my Bible” by Carman
“This is my Bible—I am what it says I am,
I have what it says I have,
I’ll do what it says I’ll do.
Ya’ll this is my Bible…”
(Setting: Inside a Buick LeSabre cruising the dark, evening streets of Kokomo, Indiana after curfew. Rick James, a balding, fiftyish man in khakis and a blue and white striped button-down shirt is behind the wheel, Bible in his lap. Occasionally, as he speaks, he looks over at the cameraman in the passenger seat.)
RICK JAMES: I’ve been an evangelist now the better part of my life, I guess. The first case I worked, I was thirteen years old. I stuffed tracts about the coming End Times into the lockers of every student in my Middle School. I put my name on the tracts. Let me tell you, I earned some bruises for Jesus for that little mission! (laughs heartily) It’s all just part of the job. Phillipians 1:29: “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him…”
(The police band radio on the dash crackles)
DISPATCHER: We got a possible 2018 in the 100 block of West Madison. Evangelists already on scene, requesting back up.
RICK JAMES: A 2018. Now that’s one you don’t hear too often. That particular code refers to Leviticus 20:18, “And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people.”
(James shifts the car into overdrive and within minutes he drives his Buick up onto the lawn of 120 West Madison Street, a non-descript ranch-style home. A Toyota Camry is parked in the driveway.)
RICK JAMES: Camry. Ain�t it always the way with these sinners, buying foreign. That�s Deacon Don and his sons, Rod and Todd. Well, looks like they got their hands full.
(James gets out of the car and the cameraman clumsily follows behind. James swiftly approaches the spot where Deacon Don wrestles on the ground with another man. James drops to his knees and begins praying. One of Deacon Don’s teenage sons is holding a woman who seems to be the sinner�s wife; she is struggling, but her wrists are bound tightly with a woven rope of WWJD bracelets. The other son stands by with a small spray canister, ready to help his father.)
DEACON DON: (to the husband) Stop resisting! I�m going to let him spray you!
HUSBAND: Fuck you, you fascist!
DEACON DON: Give him a squirt of the Holy Water, Rod.
(Rod squirts Holy Water in the man�s face. The man screams in agony)
HUSBAND: Arrrgh! What is that shit?
DEACON DON: The Holy Water of God, you filthy sinner. Does it burn? We added a little vinegar to it, such as was offered to Our Lord Jesus upon the cross.
(The husband gradually ceases to resist and lies prone on the ground. Todd lets the woman go and she drops to her knees beside him, weeping. Deacon Don stands up, panting from the exertion.)
DEACON DON: Get �em in the van boys.
RICK JAMES: What happened, Don?
DEACON DON: Well, we�ve had this couple under surveillance for a couple of months. We suspected they were engaging in sexual intercourse during the woman�s monthlies, so we began watching them, and from digging in their trash we figured out just about when the woman�s flow would begin and end each month. We collected this as evidence this morning.
(Deacon Don produces a plastic baggie containing a used maxi-pad)
DEACON DON: Then it was just a matter of waiting for the husband to come home from work and the TV to come on. We suspect it was TV that provoked the sexual intercourse.
RICK JAMES: What were they watching?
DEACON DON: They had an illegal satellite hookup and were watching old reruns of a show called Desperate Housewives. One of the most evil programs ever to air on TV. That was in the old days, of course. Anyway, I positioned Rod at the bedroom window, while Todd took a post at the living room window in case they decided on the un-Biblical action of engaging in intercourse in an unorthodox position outside the traditional confines of the bedroom.
RICK JAMES: What do we do now?
DEACON DON: Well, I want you to call this one in and ask the Dispatcher for an hermeneutist. The Book ain�t exactly clear about the punishment they are to be prescribed. Most of the time, you can just about count on a sin being either a stoning offense or a �cast down a well with a millstone around the neck� offense. This one is different. The Book says only that they are to be �cut off� from their people. Now in the man�s case, that could mean his foreskin is to be cut off. If he�s already circumcised, then we may be up the creek.
(Rick James returns to his Buick and gets on the radio to the Dispatcher)
RICK JAMES: �Yeah, Doris, I got me a 122 on that 2018, copy that?
DISPATCHER DORIS: Copy that, that�s a Matthew 12:2 on that Leviticus 20:18, Evangelist requests a Pharisee.
(A few seconds later)
PASTOR BUCKLES: This is Roy Buckles, Pastor of the One True Church of God on South Delphos Street. I am the hermeneutist on call tonight, and I got the 122 on that 2018.
RICK JAMES: Pastor Buckles, we need an interpretation of that 2018; not sure what judgement to hand down. Come back.
PASTOR BUCKLES: The 2018 calls for forced seperation from society for a period of time at our discretion. I�ll arrange separate twin beds for this sinner and his wife down at the King of Peace Retreat at Long Lake, where they will receive some intensive ministering by my Young Punks for Christ. In the meantime, you need to haul the offending bed out into the yard and burn it in order to cleanse the sin from that house.
(Deacon Don approaches and takes the mike from Rick James)
DEACON DON: Pastor Buckles, this is Deacon Don. Please advise, suspects were engaged in the illicit congress on the floor of their living room in what is vulgarly known as the �doggy style� position.
PASTOR BUCKLES: (disgust evident in his voice) Why didn�t you say so to begin with. Burn the house down. When the sinners arrive at King of Peace, I will advise that they are to be stoned. Deacon, you�ve got yourself a Leviticus 20:23, as well as a Leviticus 20:18. A woman must not present herself as an animal to her husband.
DEACON DON: Copy that, Pastor Buckles. Over and out. Rod, get the gas can from the Ford Econoline.
RICK JAMES: (taking a pocket copy of Leviticus from his breast pocket) Deacon Don, are you sure that�s what Leviticus 20:23 says?
DEACON DON: (stopping and giving Rick a hard look) He�s the hermeneutist, Rick. You aren�t going to argue, are you?
RICK JAMES: I mean, I never heard that one before; I mean, me and Barbara…
DEACON DON: Don�t tell me something I�d have to prosecute, Rick. I don�t want to know…But if you happen to notice Rod and Todd hanging around your windows for no good reason, don�t pay it no mind. Now, we got things covered here, why don�t you go back out on patrol.
(A few moments later, back in his Buick LeSabre)
RICK JAMES: You know, America�s Founding Fathers, when they founded this country on the Bible, they took it for granted that God and his agents on Earth had dominion over even the most private aspects of our lives. They believed so completely in the power of the state religion to compel citizens to follow strict rules on hygiene and sexual activity that they did not even enshrine a Right to Privacy in the Constitution. Go look sometime, you won�t find it there. Even if you had a copy of the Constitution as it existed before President Bush rewrote it in his third term, you would find no such provision. But I confess, I don�t really know that for sure. It�s so hard to remember how things used to be, before the Great Evangelical Awakening. I was just a young man at the time, but it was all so long ago. And it doesn�t really matter, does it? I mean, life is so much better now. At least that�s what I�m told.
(The police band radio crackles)
DISPATCHER DORIS: I’ve got a 1516 at 903 East Jackson…
(Fade out)