Holy Rollers (14 page)

“Charles again. Chase is too uncommon.”

It
was
his given name, and Chase understood Grant’s logic. Still, if he’d wanted to be known as Charles, he’d be known as Charles. The fact that he didn’t and wasn’t was beside the point in the middle of a seven-million-dollar job, though, so he accepted Grant’s dictate without argument.

Constance tossed a little wave into the air. “Excuse me, all you Williamses and Hudsons, but there’s one more person in the house you’ll have to explain. It’s gonna be pretty obvious to the neighbors that I’m not related to you.”

Grant sized her up. “Oh, yeah. Sorry, Constance, I wasn’t thinking.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Grant Lambert. I’m thrilled that you’ve gone color-blind. Dr. King would be
so
proud. But the rest of society—especially in
this
neighborhood—is definitely gonna notice the difference in pigmentation.”

Standing at the granite island in the center of the kitchen, chopping an onion, Farraday said, “International moneyman Grant Williams has got a chauffeur. Maybe he should have a maid, too.”

Constance put her hands on her hips. “Seriously, Farraday? You want me to be the maid? That’s the only way you think we can pass off a black woman in this house?” She swiveled to face Grant. “I gotta put up with this, Lambert?”

Grant sat in silence for a long time, carefully weighing his words before speaking. But finally he had to say something, and that something was, “Actually, Constance, maybe Farraday’s onto something…”

“What?”

“Would being called a housekeeper make you feel better?”

The answer—courtesy of a hurled toaster—was no.

It was an expensive toaster. Lisa would be adding the cost of the damages to their expenses. And Grant and Chase’s share of the loot shrank by another eighty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents.

If not for the economic recession and oil crisis of the late 1970s, the world might never have heard of Oscar Hurley. Except, that is, for people looking for new and pre-owned Chevrolets in the general vicinity of Roanoke, Virginia, many of whom had grown familiar with the slogan, “If Oscar says it’s good, it’s
great
!” over a decade of late-night television.

But Oscar Hurley Chevrolet—never a big moneymaker in the best of times—was devastated by the financial double-whammy. Some men would have toughed it out; others would have walked away; and still others would have curled up in a ball and cried.

But those men were not Oscar Hurley.

Oscar Hurley had a vision.

Moses had a vision of the Burning Bush. Saul had a vision of Christ on the road to Damascus. Hurley’s vision was every bit as vivid, and every bit as life-changing.

The vision had come to him in his sleep and remained throughout the next day. When it was
still
in his head days later, he sat Francine, his wife of four years, rail-thin and pale, down on the living room couch and made his announcement. His voice was crisp and confident.

“I’m going to start a ministry and preach the word of God.”

Francine looked into his clear, gray eyes and quietly said, “Are you out of your friggin’ mind?”

“No, no! Listen to me!” He gestured around their modest living room, an assortment of secondhand furniture and garage-sale tchochkes. “See this? Do you see this room?” She nodded disapprovingly. “Why do we live like this?”

“We live like this,” she said coolly, “because you don’t sell enough Chevys.”

“Well, yes, there’s that, too. But that’s not what I meant. We live like this because we are not allowing God to provide for us. The other night, I had a vision…”

“Oh, Oscar,” she said, with a sad shake of her head. She was so thin, so pale, he was afraid she’d faint.

“No, it was a
good
vision! It was a vision of us—Oscar and Francine Hurley—living in a mansion, surrounded by luxury.”

She stared hard into his face. “Have you been drinking again?”

“Francine, this was a divine vision! God told me what I had to do!”

She started to struggle to her feet. “Because if you’re drinking again…”

“God told me to preach His word, and He would provide.”

And then, because his wife was now fully convinced he’d been drinking again, he gently forced her back to the couch and explained in more detail.

Oscar Hurley the Chevy dealer would become
Dr.
Oscar Hurley—there were plenty of theological diploma mills in their neck of southern Virginia; that part would be easy enough—and he’d use the same oratorical skills he’d been wasting selling new and pre-owned automobiles to sell the word of God. In time, he’d have followers, and followers always had money they were willing to part with if it helped their favorite preacher reach more people. Better yet, those followers not only wouldn’t begrudge him if he lived high on the hog off their offerings, they pretty much thought it validated the importance and righteousness of their favorite preacher.

It took several hours and a few shots of bourbon, but Francine Hurley finally saw merit in her husband’s vision. Especially when it became clear his newfound religious fanaticism was really nothing more than a redirection of his career from selling Chevrolets to selling God. Undoubtedly, God would prove to be much more popular. God hadn’t produced the Vega, after all.

Time passed quickly. Within the first year of his new calling, Dr. Oscar Hurley was making a name for himself and collecting increasingly enthusiastic audiences in the small border towns of southern Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina. Through his traveling salvation show, he met some religious broadcasters and soon had a weekly regional radio show, which in short time evolved into a weekly regional television show.

And still his ministry grew. New, larger crowds necessitated a permanent structure instead of rented halls and borrowed pulpits, so supporters dug deep into their pockets and built the first Virginia Cathedral of Love on an acre of land a few miles outside Roanoke. Another few years later, as his early cable TV presence grew and attracted more worshippers, the congregation was over capacity. The building was razed and a second, larger cathedral was built.

By the mid-1980s, Dr. Hurley commanded a small army of congregants, and politicians began paying calls. After personally noting the size of the congregation and experiencing Dr. Oscar Hurley’s charisma, those politicians began taking orders. They’d never admit to that, of course—they’d insist they were representing the views of their constituents—but it amounted to the same thing. A prayer breakfast was arranged in Richmond one year; the next year, the North Carolinians wanted one, so he went to Raleigh. Then to Charleston…to Annapolis…to Harrisburg…

He even went into the belly of the beast:
Albany
.

President Reagan brought him to the White House late in his second term. So did the first President Bush, President Clinton, and the second President Bush. He testified before Congress. He led a prayer breakfast for conservative Christians in Congress. He led a vigil against liberals in Congress and on the Supreme Court.

And with every notch up in his visibility—every mention in a newspaper, every pat on the back from a devout elected official, every condemnation by a secular liberal talking head on television—more money gushed into his coffers. Every day the mail brought more checks; every day the congregants offered up more cash.

It wasn’t easy, though. It was certainly not as easy as he’d supposed when he told Francine of his vision that preaching would bring him fame and, more importantly, fortune. In fact, there was a lot of hard work involved.

Because Oscar Hurley hadn’t planned on
strategy
when he began his ministry, and it soon became apparent that continued relevancy had everything to do with strategy. As the years and decades rolled past, he’d learned that his message had to mirror the times. What sold in 1978 was not necessarily what would sell in 2011. The word of God may have been timeless and eternal, but the interest of the flock had an expiration date.

So he had learned how to stay relevant; to stay in sync with the people he led. He was nothing if not adaptable.

That was where politics came into play. The definition of sin might be flexible—even
he
had given up railing against cohabitation before marriage by the late ’90s, realizing that was a lost cause—but politics would always be relevant. Politics was a high-profile affair, and politicians—even the liberals—constantly sought to define themselves as righteous and God-fearing. There was a reason there were almost no self-avowed atheists or agnostics in public office, especially in Washington, DC.

With an overflowing bank account and his popularity still on the rise, Dr. Oscar Hurley began planning another expansion of the Cathedral of Love. This time, though, Roanoke would not be its home. Instead, he would take his mission a couple hundred miles up the road, to the outskirts of the nation’s capital.

Access, after all, was
access
.

Soon he was symbolically scooping the first shovelful of dirt at the site of the new Virginia Cathedral of Love in Nash Bog. It would be, he thought, their last and permanent home.

The town offered quick access to the District of Columbia and Dulles Airport, and its leaders agreed to some zoning concessions. Better yet, they promised to build him the access road that would become Cathedral Boulevard.

In exchange, Hurley had promised nothing but a constant parade of the faithful who would shop, dine, and perhaps buy property in Nash Bog. Millions of people each year. That was a lot of commerce.

Everyone involved agreed it was a good deal.

The cathedral was built quickly, and Oscar and Francine Hurley abandoned Roanoke without so much as a glance in the rearview mirror, their limousine leading a convoy of moving trucks—one devoted exclusively to the Desk of Christ, which he’d had hand-crafted by a North Carolina furniture maker some years earlier—two hundred miles north along I-81 to Nash Bog. As he suspected, his old congregation didn’t begrudge this step up in his status. They reveled in it, and many members even moved to Loudoun County to be closer to him.

The sheep had followed their shepherd. He’d counted on that. Once again, his long-ago, Carter Administration–era vision had proven to be on target. It may have taken longer than he’d originally thought, but it had happened. God—and entrepreneurship—had provided. Everything had grown so big. Even Francine, once rail-thin, had trebled her weight.

Hurley not-so-subtly let the town leaders know that their concessions to his cathedral had brought all those new residents to Nash Bog.
And
that they voted. From that point forward, church and state coexisted amicably. Even the Buddhist councilmember attended services several times each year.

The
new
Virginia Cathedral of Love was a worthy anchor for the moral authority of Dr. Oscar Hurley. But…

Within a few days, he realized there was something missing.

A cross.

Of course there
was
a cross. It soared some fifty feet into the air above the church building. It was fine enough for a normal church, but it was thin and relatively unimposing, not the sort of symbol he thought should represent the Cathedral. Massive as it was, the Cathedral of Love demanded a cross that would soar into the heavens, with a heft and girth that would announce to the world that Christ resided here with Dr. Oscar Hurley.

By the end of the following week he had personally drafted a blueprint for an appropriate cross, 280 feet tall and 120 feet in circumference at the base. That cross would have been a beacon for Christians throughout the world had the meddlesome Federal Aviation Administration not informed him that he’d have to attach a blinking red light to the top to warn away aircraft.

Since the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified did
not
have a blinking red light at the top—the fact that Jesus was also not crucified on a 280-foot-tall cross had never really been a consideration—and since no amount of persuasion could convince Congress to strip the agency of funding until the FAA saw things
his
way, Hurley was forced to rescale his plans. So he took a four-by-four sheet of reinforced cardboard, retooled the dimensions, and personally drew a new cross.

At 199 feet, the new cross would fall twelve inches short of the FAA’s restrictions, and so, a few years after the Virginia Cathedral of Love opened its doors, construction finally began. Even though every time Hurley now looked at the Great Cross he regretted paring 81 feet, it was still an amazing structure, visible from large swaths of Loudoun County.

Dennis Merribaugh had overseen construction of the cross. It was his first official assignment since leaving his small church in Delaware to join the staff of the Cathedral as its chief operating officer. Merribaugh had taken one look at the blueprint for the solid cement structure, grabbed a pen, and made some sound recommendations on ways the Great Cross could be constructed cheaply and efficiently and without, he said, sacrificing the overall aesthetics or quality. Plus he figured out how to make it functional. Hurley was sold on the spot and construction began as soon as Merribaugh was able to find the encampments of day laborers who serviced those good people of Loudoun County that didn’t want to get their hands dirty.