When they say that about Wyatt Connors, they put the emphasis on 'artist.'
For his career as both an agent and a wrestler, and probably well before then, he specialized in cooking up intricate lies, stacking one on top of another like a house of cards. Sure, it would fall apart as soon as he left, but by then there was nothing that could be done. The damage was done, and Connors was nowhere to be found (and usually, neither was someone's money.)
He could construct reality out of thin air, in front of one person or a thousand or a million. And he could do it all without batting an eye.
Which then begged the question: why the hell was he so nervous now?
He stood at the front of the old run-down church and looked out into the crowd. Twelve people, none of them a day under sixty, all dressed in suits and dresses whose combined total price would not have equaled that of his shoes. Every one of them staring back with expectant eyes.
It shouldn't be this hard. All he had to do was stand up here and spout bullshit for about half an hour, then call it a day. Yet throughout the rest of the service--he'd asked Mavis Jessup to do the gospel reading; she'd never been so proud--he couldn't put together a string of thoughts that had anything to do with Jesus. Most of his thoughts had to do with jumping out the window and running like hell before God showed up to find out just what was going on in His house.
Now, he was out of time. They'd done the offering--five dollars and forty-eight cents--and it was time for the new reverend to give the sermon.
Well, he thought. You've really stepped in it now, haven't you.
With sweating palms, Wyatt gripped the sides of the rickety pulpit. While his mouth was still, his brain was not. He chided himself, Think of something, you ass. You're losing them.
'I'd like to speak to you today about evil.' That was a good start. People who came to church wanted to hear about evil. Right? Right.
'Evil is everywhere, and it is powerful.' One of the congregation nodded, then another. He was on the right track. 'Everyone in the world--man and woman, rich and poor, weak or strong--must recognize and deal with evil every day.' He had their attention...which meant, it was time to throw them a curveball.
'But here's something you should consider: is evil...necessary?'
His statement was met with a sea of astonished faces. Well, not a sea. More like a sump. But they were astonished, dammit.
'Think about it. God created the universe, and everything in it. Does that mean that God created evil?'
A murmur ran through the crowd, such as it was. They obviously weren't ready for such radical thinking...but perhaps they'd become receptive.
'When humans were created, they were created with free will. We are free to make our own choices...which means, that there must be a choice to make. If there were no sin in the world, then there would be no temptation...but also, there would be no salvation. We would not strive for heaven, if there were not the threat of hell.'
Wyatt felt an increasing sense of comfort. This wasn't so bad, really. As long as it was about God, he could spew out whatever bullshit came to mind, and these people would eat it up with a spoon.
'Sin is evil, yes. But it is, as the saying goes, a necessary evil. Life would be meaningless without it, and the afterlife more so.'
Despite the all-too-serious look on his face, he was happy as a clam. Yes, he'd been placed in a very bad situation. But he was using that situation to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of devout Christians. Today was just like any other day when some wet-behind-the-ears punk put him on the spot...Connors would stand front and center, and do what he did best.
Ruin everything.
'Could you have free will without evil? In fact...could good even exist without evil?'
He cast his gaze out into the congregation, envisioning the little wheels turning in their heads as they took in his words. But as he saw their faces, he was quickly reminded of the difference between fantasy and reality.
They were simply not having it.
Some were confused by the new reverend's speech. Some were angered. Some simply weren't listening anymore. Each face had a different expression, and they were all disastrous.
Wyatt could feel his nerves fraying, little by little. What was wrong with these people? Didn't they know the rules? He lied to them, they believed him, everyone had a good time--and by 'everyone,' he meant 'Wyatt Connors.' That was how it worked. But these dumbfuck yokels, wearing their best Sunday overalls with only a little cow shit on them, stared at him like he was trying to 'Crank That' in the middle of a square dance.
'It's one of the great philoso--' he interrupted himself with a cough-- 'Excuse me. Great philosophical question of...of our time.'
He was floundering now, and he knew it. Wyatt looked elsewhere for validation, and continued to not get it when he saw Seth, standing by the side door and giving him the stink eye.
'Just dwell on those thoughts for a moment. The sermon will continue after the next hymn...Mavis, if you please.'
Hurriedly, Mavis Jessup walked to the front, her pretty yellow floral-print dress shining in the morning light. She carried a musty hymnal, and opened it. She soon began singing, and soon the others joined in, each in their own key.
'On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross...'
With the crowd properly distracted, Wyatt slinked away from the pulpit, and over toward Seth.
'What the hell are you doing?' Seth asked.
Connors wasn't entirely sure, but he faked it anyway. 'I'm preaching.'
'That's not a sermon; that's a lecture.'
'Hey!' Connors hissed. 'You wanted me to sermon, and I'm sermoning. Do I give you pointers on how to be a mysterious douchebag?'
Seth discretely nodded toward the audience--pointing would have drawn their attention, and neither man wanted that right now. 'Look at them. Do they seem even slightly receptive to what you're talking about?'
'Those are awfully big words for a farmhand. Anyway, I thought this was what you wanted. Me, failing spectacularly and looking like an ass.'
'Yeah, but it's not any fun if you're not trying. Now get back up there and do it right.'
Wyatt almost snapped a retort, but knew it wouldn't do him any good...and besides, the song was ending soon. He wandered back to the pulpit, watching the congregation as they sang along.
And like lightning, it struck him.
He really had been going about it all wrong. Religion was a tricky subject when it came to the con; you had to know your audience. These were rural Southerners; the kind of people who both treated and spelled 'education' as a four-letter word. They wanted no part of logic or rationality; they stuck to their blind faith. And their guns, of course, but Wyatt preferred not to think about that right now. They were people who learned things from their parents; and they only things their parents knew were the value of hard work, and that anyone who didn't love Jesus went to hell when they died.
That was why he couldn't sell them a bill of goods--they'd already bought one from someone else. All he had to do was tell them the lies that they already believed.
'So, by now you've had time to go over my earlier remarks. What did you think of them?'
There was some dissatisfied muttering. Wyatt smiled, just a little bit.
'Tell the truth, I wasn't that fond of them myself. You see, I had to hear things like that every day when I was out in New York City, from all the Godless intellectual types. They think that a fancy piece of paper means they know all there is to know about everything. But you can't go to Princeton and take a class on how to save your everlasting soul, can you?'
Nothing.
'CAN YOU?!' he shouted, and his flock jumped back to attention.
'You see, they spend all that money, and take all those classes. They come out of it 'smarter' than they were...but that's just a trick, ladies and gentlemen, one of the devil's most sinister. A professor's words are Satan's whispers--the fools think that, because they're hard to understand, they must contain wisdom. So they fill themselves with those words, and they poison themselves. Their minds and their souls are sick, and they don't even know it!'
Wyatt spared a quick glance toward Seth, who seemed to be in a better mood than before...either because Wyatt was doing a better job, or he was failing in a more amusing fashion. He couldn't be sure, and had no time to worry about it now.
'These pour confused sinners would come up to me and engage in debate. 'Don't you believe in the Big Bang Theory,' they'd say, or 'don't you believe in evolution?' Like such things are rock-solid facts. They're just a bunch of hogwash that some egghead made up because God was too big to fit into his science books.'
It chafed at Connors to dumb down his language like that, but he had to make sure people caught his meaning. Besides, if you were decrying smart people, it probably wasn't a good idea to sound smart yourself.
'And even those who claimed to be good Christians, they too were full of Lucifer's mischief. For they'd ask if evil was the equal opposite of good, and one can't exist without the other; like light and darkness, like love and hate. They don't understand the truth!'
'Hallelujah!' came a shout from the crowd.
I've got them now.
'The truth is that the more you learn, the less you know. The devil lives in computers and textbooks and three-hour geology labs. Those things just fill up your head with nonsense and details, distracting you from the things that are important. That's why these people don't understand! They don't realize that love and hate, good and evil...these things are NOT equal opposites, because one is so clearly stronger than the other! The truth is that good CAN exist without evil! Just look at the Garden of Eden--before the serpent whispered into Eve's ear, they were getting along just fine without sin. So those 'intellectuals' can think about that while they burn in the eternal flames of hell! NOT SO SMART NOW, ARE YOU?!'
'Hallelujah!' There were more of them this time. Wyatt felt a strange energy creeping into him...his began to speak faster, and he made grand sweeping gestures with every statement. Indeed, he was getting the hang of this.
'There's only one book that holds all the real knowledge you need for life, and I think you know what it is! Those intellectuals back in New York City can have their atheism and their Nietzsche and their discussion groups on metaphysics. Us simple folk, we'll get all our lessons from the Lord God Almighty!'
A resounding cheer went up in the tiny old building, sounding more like fifty people than twelve. Wyatt Connors spread his arms and soaked it all in.
# # #
Now.
Free.
That was the word that raced through is mind as he ran.
Free!
He wasn't even certain how he got escaped. For a long time--months? years?--he had been locked inside the makeshift prison, forgotten by his friends, his enemies...even his jailer no longer thought of him. Then, one night, the door was propped open.
For the first hour, he just stared at it. It was a trap. It had to be. As soon as he tried to leave, the Scarred Man would slam it shut and bar his escape...or, he'd slam the door on him, adding injury to the insult. Well, he was too smart for that. So he waited.
And the Scarred Man waited too. Or so he thought.
For the next hour, he had inched his way toward the door, maybe to see if that would bring the Scarred Man out of hiding. But he never did. He couldn't hear his captor's heavy breathing. There was no sign of his angry eyes. Even the acrid stink that surrounded the Scarred Man was in absence. Eventually, a thought worked its way through the prisoner's madness-addled brain.
Free?
He poked his head out of the door and looked around, just to make sure it wasn't a trick. Still, there was no Scarred Man...but he could see another door, this one leading...out. Out?
Free!
The prisoner was up the stairs and through the door in a shot, a prisoner no more.
FREE!
He loped through the bushes in the dead of night, hoping nobody would find him and take him back. He needed to get out of the city...as far away as possible.
But where could he go?
A vision pierced through the fog in his mind. It was a picture of a sweet middle-aged lady, and her gruff but well-meaning husband.
And he remembered.
He had to go back to the beginning. Before he had been consumed with fame, then with bitterness. Before things had become all...strange.
The man turned instinctually toward the west, and spoke his first words of English in six months.
'Save...them...'
He stared out at nothing, his eyes like a wild animal's.
'Save...them...from...'