Chapter 4

Revulsion

Reverend Billy Joe Wilder switched off the television as the CNN coverage of the Berkeley press conference ended and threw the remote on the coffee table in disgust.

"Blasphemy!" he yelled, loud enough to startle Sheila, his secretary. She cringed. She hated it when he got upset like this.

"According to the Bible, the Earth is no more than about 6,000 years old, tops! Whatever them pointy-headed liberal college types found down in Antarctica sure wasn’t built by no aliens from outer space! If human beings could build the pyramids of Egypt and the Tower of Babel, why in the name of Sweet Jesus couldn’t human bein’s build pyramids in Antarctica?"

Sheila cringed again. "But Billy Joe, what about all the ice?"

"Ice don’t mean nothing," he thundered back. "The Lord decided Antarctica should be cold and covered with ice, so He caused it to snow. He had thousands of years to do it, which for Him is but the blink of an eye."

Sheila couldn’t argue with Billy Joe’s logic. "Why I guess that’s true," she said, with admiration in her voice. As far as she was concerned, Billy Joe Wilder had to be the smartest man she’d ever met; maybe even the smartest man alive.

"All those scientists and Darwinists and other non-believers go making up these stories that go against the Lord’s word, and it just ain’t right!"

"No it ain’t," Sheila agreed.

Billy Joe was working up a high dudgeon now, pacing back and forth as Sheila sat at the end of the sofa in his private office.

"Now your truly faithful folks, them that’s been saved, they’ll see through these lies and know them for what they are. But there’s lots of folks out there who haven’t been saved yet, and this kind of blasphemous nonsense just makes it harder to reach them."

Sheila nodded vigorously.

"I’ve got to write a sermon for this Sunday’s program exposing these fairy tales for the lies they are, and revealing the truth to our flock. For the truth shall set them free."

As Sheila nodded, the phone rang, and she jumped up to answer it.

"Billy Joe Wilder’s office... Oh yes, just a moment Mrs. Wilder." She put her hand over the mouthpiece. "It’s your wife," she said, perhaps a bit redundantly.

"Thank you darlin’," Billy Joe said softly before taking the phone from her.

"Hi, sweetheart, how are you?" He listened for a moment.

"Yes, I saw the press conference.

"Uh huh...

"Uh huh...

"Yes, I’m gonna be addressing that very subject this coming Sunday."

Billy Joe’s wife Mabel was a very devout woman, and she often provided advice and guidance when it came time to prepare the sermons for Billy Joe’s Sunday broadcasts on the Christian Cable Network.

"Yes, dear, I’m fixing to call Bobby Palmer over at HMU. He’ll be able to help with solid Biblical science to refute their secular so-called science.

"That’s right...

"We’ll work on it tonight when I get home.

"I love you too, dear.

"Goodbye."

Billy Joe put the phone down smoothly, hiding his annoyance at having been interrupted by his wife’s call. He’d just been building up a good head of steam, and Sheila had been eating it up. He started in again, talking about the way heathens were trying to take over the world, and how it was the duty of all good God-fearing Christians to do battle with the forces of evil. Within a few minutes he’d brought the energy level in the room back up to and past where he’d had it before the phone rang.

"...and that’s why it’s so important for good Christians to do everything they can to support God’s efforts on Earth," he intoned.

"Oh, I know," said Sheila, "I know!"

"Of course, a man like me, with so much responsibility, and such a passion for the Lord’s work, well, some of that passion can’t help but spill over into other areas of his life."

Again Sheila nodded to show him she understood what he was saying. Billy Joe moved to the sofa and stood before her.

"And my dear Mabel, well, she’s a wonderful woman, but she just can’t take care of all of the needs of a man like me, you know."

"Oh, I know that, Billy Joe," Sheila replied.

"Sheila, darlin’, are you ready to help me in my fight against the forces of Satan?" he asked her earnestly.

"Yes, I am!" she answered, reaching to unbutton her blouse. They’d been down this road more than a few times before.

"I knew that I could count on you," said Billy Joe, as he unclasped his belt and lowered his zipper. "I knew that I could."

•

Wilder sat at his desk, waiting for his phone call to be answered. The line clicked, and a voice answered "Hello."

"Bobby, is that you?"

"Hello, Billy Joe, how you doing?" said Bobby Palmer. The head of the Creation Sciences Department of Holy Mother University had been preparing to leave for the evening when his old friend called.

"I’m doing just fine, mighty fine. I just finished boffin’ my secretary, so I’m feeling real good."

"You dog!" Palmer replied. "She that cute little brunette with the really nice hooters?"

"That’s the one."

"Man, I wouldn’t mind getting some of that myself," Palmer opined.

"Now, you get your own ‘tang, son. This one’s my private property."

"That ain’t very Christian of you, Billy Joe," said Palmer with a chuckle.

Wilder gave a short guffaw back, before moving to his subject.

"Bobby, did you see that press conference from U. C. Berkeley on CNN today?"

"Yeah, I did."

"What’d you think?"

"Well, I started following the whole thing right after it showed up on the Internet. I gotta say that it looks to me like they found a city buried underneath the ice. And it also looks like it’s been there a long, long time."

"Yeah, that’s what they were saying," said Wilder.

"And that woman scientist made a good point about the carbon dating, but still, the evidence points to an origin around the end of the Mesozoic period."

"Say, she wasn’t too shabby, was she?" Wilder replied. "What was it, Stephanie something?"

"Yeah, something like that. No, she’d do!" said Palmer.

"Well Bobby, you know I can’t talk about Mesozoic or Jurassic or any of that kind of shit in my sermon. I’ve got to stick to the strict interpretation that the Earth was created roughly 6,000 years ago. Is there anything you can give me to help make those scientists look like chumps on Sunday?"

Palmer thought for a moment before answering. The oldest known artifacts of human civilization dated back to around 8,000 or 9,000 BC, which was easy enough to fudge figures on. As for older human artifacts, from Cro Magnon on back through the earliest known hominids, the standard approach was simply to dispute the accuracy of carbon or potassium-argon dating. The same with dinosaurs; according to strict fundamentalist science, humans and dinosaurs walked the Earth at the same time, and the dinosaurs died out in the Flood.

Palmer knew that this was all nonsense. But Wilder’s viewers – his customers, he called them privately – were hard-core fundamentalists, and if the Bible said the Earth was only 6,000 years old, well, that’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Give the customers what they want.

"I’d go after the whole carbon dating thing. Your folks already thinks it’s bogus, so this fits in perfectly. As for the ice pack, I’d ignore that. The average person has no idea how the age of glacial ice is dated, so I’d just leave it to them to find their own way to discredit that evidence."

"Hmm," Wilder considered. "I think you’re right. I’ll keep things simple. Turn it to a good old, basic attack on the eggheads themselves."

"Why mess with something that works?" Palmer replied.

"Good," said Wilder, glad that his instincts had been confirmed.

"So, Billy, when we going fishing again?" asked Palmer.

"Boy I’d like to, Bobby, but, well, Mabel keeps coming up with these functions I gotta go to. You know, keep the image up and give face time to the flock."

"How is the battleaxe?" asked Palmer.

"Hell, you know," said Wilder. "Still the same. Shit, she’s so tight when she farts she whistles."

Palmer laughed. "Well, that’s why the good Lord made secretaries with big boobs!"

"You got that right," said Wilder with a chuckle. "OK, bubba, speaking of the ball and chain, I’m expected home for dinner."

"Yeah, me too. See ya later, B. J." said Palmer, and they hung up.

Before he left his office, Wilder made a stop in the bathroom to wash himself off. It wouldn’t be good for Mabel to notice the aroma that clung to him when he came to bed tonight.

•

When Sheila Eakins got to her apartment, she fed the cat, closed the curtains, went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth. She then took a large hit of mouthwash and swirled it around for more than a minute before spitting and rinsing.

Billy Joe Wilder was a wonderful man, she thought, and he truly needed her help and support, and she was thrilled that he turned to her to give him the strength to carry on the good fight. And the Lord wouldn’t have made us of flesh and blood, she thought, with all the attendant needs if He hadn’t intended us to fulfill those needs. But all the same, she’d be just as happy if Billy Joe were, well, maybe just a bit more conventional in his appetites.

She slipped out of her clothes and stepped into the shower. As she washed herself, she imagined that the hands moving over her body were Billy Joe’s, and she remembered what he’d felt like, and she knew that she was truly doing God’s work.